Question 17083 — decorations, badges and emblems

Summary

Mrs. Sylvie Ferrer questions the Minister of the Armed Forces and Veterans on the conditions for awarding the Volunteer Combatant's Cross with “external missions” clasp, created by Decree No. 2011-1933 of December 22, 2011. This text opened this distinction to operational reservists who have voluntarily served in theaters of external operations. On the other hand, active military personnel remain excluded from benefiting from this decoration, including when they themselves have completed a voluntary and formalized process to be projected into external operations. This difference in treatment is generally justified by the fact that active military personnel are subject to the obligations of the general status of military personnel, in particular that of serving at all times and in all places. However, this analysis undoubtedly deserves to be re-examined in the light of the modalities concrete projections of certain personnel. Indeed, in many formations, particularly within the departmental gendarmerie and certain support formations, participation in external operations is based on calls for individual volunteers. The personnel concerned are not designated collectively solely because of their assignment; they must first demonstrate their desire to serve in a theater externally by submitting a personal application. For these soldiers, engagement in external operations is not the normal consequence of their assignment. Volunteering constitutes an essential precondition for their projection. For example, certain gendarmerie units can be engaged collectively as part of their operational vocation. This is not the case for gendarmerie brigades departmental, whose primary mission is to ensure local public security on a daily basis on the national territory. Given this mission, these units are not intended to be collectively projected into external operations as part of their assignment. Therefore, the military personnel who serve there can only participate in an OPEX following a personal application and volunteering process. This situation shows that belonging to military status does not automatically lead to participation in external operations. For these personnel, the projection is the direct result of a personal and voluntary approach. Furthermore, when an operational reservist volunteers for an external mission, he does not do so as a simple civilian but as a soldier of the operational reserve. Article L. 4111-2 of the code of Defense in fact provides for the application of the general status of the military to reservists carrying out an activity under the operational reserve. Thus, when the reservist submits his application for an external mission, he is already acting within the framework of his military commitment. Without ignoring the statutory differences existing between active military personnel and reservists, it appears that, in formations where projection is based exclusively on an individual call for volunteers, commitment to an external operation proceeds in both cases from the same personal application process. This development perhaps deserves to be compared to that of the very notion of volunteering. The historical provisions of the Volunteer Combatant's Cross were largely based on the notion of commitment contracted for a specific conflict, which in fact excluded soldiers already engaged under arms. Decree No. 2011-1933 of December 22, 2011 adopted a different approach by recognizing, for operational reservists, the process of volunteering to serve in external operations. Without calling into question the criteria currently in force, this development appears to reflect a broader consideration of volunteering. It legitimately leads us to question the situation of active soldiers and gendarmes whose participation in certain external operations is also based on a prior voluntary application, without which the projection would not take place. This reflection also seems to be in keeping with the historical spirit of the Volunteer Combatant's Cross. When this distinction was created, the decree of November 28, 1935 provided in particular for taking into account military personnel who had requested their transfer from a non-combatant assignment to a combat unit. The philosophy of this decoration thus accorded a particular place to the act of volunteering which led to exposure to the risk of combat. In this spirit, certain active military personnel serving in units whose primary vocation is not external projection believe that their voluntary approach could be recognized according to principles analogues. This question appears all the more legitimate as reservists and active military personnel can, moreover, access the same distinctions rewarding merits, services rendered or brilliant actions. The question posed here is therefore less that of individual merits than that of the specific recognition of a voluntary commitment having made participation in an external operation possible. Also, she asks if the Government plans to change the conditions for awarding the Volunteer Combatant's Cross with "external missions" staple, or at the very least to re-examine the situation of active soldiers and gendarmes who responded to an individual call for volunteers to be projected into a theater of operations.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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