11/09/2018 (Agence Europe) – On Monday 10 September, the Chief of the Defence Staff of France, General François Lecointre, said that Europe “urgently” needs a collective defence system that is up to the job of ensuring its strategic autonomy. “In a context in which multilateralism is being called into question, alliances are crumbling and we are moving towards a new global centre of gravity between the United States and Asia, the European continent must face up to all types of threats, alone and increasingly by itself: power, terrorism, hybrid threats, cyber threats, migration”, he told the Summer Defence Universities at Versailles. He added that “the aim is clear: we need to build European strategic autonomy together”. The day before, Defence Minister Florence Parly had stressed that “Defence Europe was today an imperative, out of realism, out of pragmatism, almost out of observation”. (CG)