[Portrait] A fighter pilot at the French military representation
(BRUSSELS2) After Jean-Louis Falconi, who came straight from Bernard Kouchner's cabinet as COPS ambassador a year ago, it is another direct arrival from a ministerial cabinet that marks the French representation in Brussels. Vice-Admiral Xavier Païtard, head of Hervé Morin's military cabinet, takes over as head of the French military representation to the EU (and NATO) on September 1, replacing General De Rousiers (Air Force), appointed Inspector General of the Armed Forces. A sailor replaces an airman. Finally a sailor who also likes the air.
In the air, a fighter pilot appreciated by the Americans
Born in 1954, a graduate of the naval school (class of 1974), Païtard was, in fact, a fighter pilot for naval aeronautics, first on the Super Etendard aboard aircraft carriers Clemenceau or Foch (1980-1983). A feat of arms, he flew aboard American A-7 Corsair fighter planes (as part of an exchange program) and was engaged in combat missions during the intervention on the island of La Grenada and during the Lebanon War (1983-84). He then continued to fly on the Super-Etendard, served on the General Staff of the naval air group in the Arabian Sea before taking command of the 11F flotilla (1988-1990).
Commitments in Bosnia and the Comoros
Appointed frigate captain, he joined the higher school of naval warfare and the atomic school of Cherbourg, from which he graduated with the certificate of atomic engineer. Head of the operations group on the aircraft carrier Clemenceau (1992-1994), he took part in air operations in the Adriatic and over Bosnia (war in the former Yugoslavia). He then took command of the (famous) frigate Floreal (1994-1996), of which the least of the feats of arms, then, will be the intervention in 1995 in the Grandes Comoros after the coup d'etat of the French mercenary Bob Denard. He then directed, at the naval staff, the destinies of the Charles de Gaulle, the emblematic aircraft carrier of the Royale, launched in the water (not without difficulty) in 1999.
Back and forth between national and multinational
A calmer horizon, then, Xavier Païtard directed the planning and development of study programs at NATO's defense college before assuming responsibility for the "external relations" unit at Michèle Alliot-Marie (MAM) when she was Minister of Defense (2001-2003), he then moved to Norfolk as head of the French military mission and then as head of the “future capabilities, research and technology division of the Allied Command for the transformation” of NATO ( 2004-2005), before returning to MAM in 2005 as his military chief of staff, a position in which he will continue when ministers change with Hervé Morin.
At the head of the French military representation in Brussels, the vice-admiral of the squadron will take part in the meetings of the military committees of both the EU and NATO (France having abandoned, along with its reintegration into NATO, the fact of to have two military representatives in Brussels). In particular, he will have the task of putting to music the reintegration of the French into the various NATO committees (already begun) but also of strengthening European Defense - an advanced counterpart to the reintegration of France into NATO and a promise which has not really been held (at least not yet).
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
