On 14 November, Senior Course (SC) 133 was in Paris for a round of institutional briefings. They were received at the Ministry of the Armed Forces by VADM Hervé de Bonnaventure, Directeur général adjoint des relations internationales et de la stratégie.
Course Members were then updated on French defence and security perspectives, covering the following points: NATO from a French viewpoint, by CAPT Geoffroy Roussel, Sous-directeur action multilatérale – Direction générale des relations internationales et de la stratégie; military operations, by COL François Pinczon du Sel, Chef du bureau OTAN, État-major de la Défense; and the role of international organizations, by Mr Florian Escudié, Sous-directeur des affaires stratégiques et de la cybersécurité, Ministère de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères. All three speakers afterwards spent time answering questions.
At the Senate in the afternoon, the NDC group met Mr Gilbert Roger, Senator for Seine-Saint-Denis and Vice President of the Commission for Foreign Affairs, Defence and the Armed Forces, who is a regular member of the French delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. He provided an overview of French security and defence policy, followed by a Q&A period.
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Collège de Défense de l'OTAN