Closing speech, Alice Rufo , Executive Director of the DGRIS , ministry of Armed forces [RSMed 2023]

So

thank you very much. It's obviously the most,

not

the most difficult, but it's not an easy exercise to conclude due to the richness of the debates I heard. Today I heard many things and I wish I could have been here yesterday.

And

I'm at the end of the debates before the apparel, before the

cocktail.

So it's a difficult challenge to keep you in this room. So I must tell you that I was born here in Toulon

and

I just

came

out of a panel with the youth,

which

was extremely interesting.

And

the first question

that

was asked by the moderator, well, he said, what is your local anchoring? My anchoring is very strong. I come from here

and

the strategic events, you know, bring me back here. And what I'll tell you very sincerely is the pleasure of seeing how numerous you are here

and which

confirms what I think is that strategic debates, strategic studies

only

from Paris or Brussels. It's no longer possible. It's not relevant.

So

in my role

at

the directorate general of international relations and strategic relationships, we're really in line with the need. And you're the demonstration that we need more strategic discussion. It's essential. I think this second edition confirms the relevance of this kind of format, this openness

and

the fact of doing this here on the shores of the Mediterranean. we need to continue, we need to

become

more increasingly international. We have to turn these dialogues into reference meetings. You can count on me

because

I have faith in this and I, listening to your debates, I really am convinced of the,

well,

this is well-founded. A lot of things were said. Needless to go back on this. But what struck me in the exchanges, this was quite obvious, is in fact, the Mediterranean space, when you look at the general evolutions of the present conflicts and everything, the Mediterranean space concentrates

all

the evolutions. Nothing surprising to this

because

in the end,

it's

a cradle of culture and attention sometimes.

And

it's also

a

very rich geostrategic space, a lot of drawbacks, a lot of assets, it concentrates strategic trends,

as

we say at the Ministry of Army. But to go back and try to make a very quick synthesis of our risk changes, the context, the contemporary strategic context is marked

by

an increase of conflict, the number of conflicts. It's a fact that this growth of the conflicts, it translates in the intensity of the conflict.

Fortunately,

what's happening today, we see since the shock that represented for the region, the terrorist attacks against Israel, the suffering of the Palestinians and Gaza, and the risk that we

all

had in mind of a regional ramp-up, of course, we tried to act

to

avoid it.

I think this

intensity and the momentum of conflictuality was marked by the war in Ukraine.

I

think Nathalie Loiseau

was

right to start

her

presentation talking about the Mediterranean, addressing the issue of the war in Ukraine. I think it would be a mistake

to

oppose, again,

the

north to the south, the east to the west, when you look at the geopolitical context, simply because it's not true.

If

you take

the

war in Ukraine, okay,

it's

a high-intensity war on the European continent, it's a shock, incredible increase, but this war that has a maritime dimension that was mentioned in the exchanges also,

in

fact, it concerns only the neighboring countries of the Mediterranean. If you look at the east front of NATO, countries are directly concerned by the war in Ukraine, and then this war is a rupture

by

a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN, of the Charter of the United Nations.

And

excuse me to be very blunt here, but I heard a

lot of

debates on

the

standing of Europe. But if there's one country that does not respect the sovereign choices of a country, or its political system,

or

what it wants to build

for

its future, it's Russia. Russia, with this war, denies to Ukraine its possibility of making its own sovereign choices,

and

denies

its

territorial integrity against the Charter of the United Nations.

And

so all this brings us

to…

So this concerns us all because of that, and it directly concerns the Mediterranean space because it was immediately hybrid in its format,

and

used

the

destabilization that we see a little bit everywhere in the Mediterranean space, in the Caucasian regions, in the Balkans,

in

Africa, and in the Middle East. Russia uses the cyberattacks to improve its war effort, demonstrate the divides in the Western world, and

demonstrate

that the world wants to deploy the right model. And it

is

also used, this was raised often in the panel

we

just had, in the information space. At the beginning, the war on the Ukraine did not only concern Europe, you know, when you go to Africa, you know, we heard a lot in Africa here, we heard it was the sanctions that give rise to terrible difficulties that are real

objective, including

for food supply.

It's

the war that gave rise to the situation. It's Russia that decided to make war,

to

declare war to Ukraine. So you may see this war was thought through as hybrid, but it concerns the Mediterranean region, has a direct impact. The increase in the intensity of conflicts that we see in the Mediterranean, and growth, and geographic broadening, enlargement of the conflictuality, extension of the conflicts that exist. We talk about Syria, we talk about Libya. To this, we have the destabilization in Sahel, with the coups, military coups, and

the,

of course, terrorist threat is is growing there because the cell countries

decided

to use their competitors, and they don't no longer fight

against

terrorism there.

So

there's a new sanctuary, terrorist sanctuary in Sahel.

So

the geographic extension of the conflictuality, instability in neighboring regions, and the whole Mediterranean space, and that was said this morning from the Caucasus regions to Sahel,

through

Libya. So the really the Mediterranean is at the crossroads

of

this extension of conflictuality, whether in intensity or geographically. And the enlargement also of conflictuality, due to the fact that to the

the

existing threats like terrorism, nuclear proliferation, the Iran was mentioned, there was an added competition, a growing competition on energy flows, commercial flows, trade flows, new fields of conflictuality. I also mentioned that when talking about the deep sea, and this is deployed in the Mediterranean in the context of a crude competition up to conflictuality. So we see that this Mediterranean space is strategic,

and

it's really at the crossroads of the evolution of contemporary conflictuality. So we shouldn't zoom out. The Mediterranean is our future. We're in Toulon, and that's where a lot of strategic stakes are being played.

And

this is happening at a time, there's a third strategic trend,

the

fragmentation of the international order, fragmentation, and this was also covered by an increase of the Chinese-American rivalry, make difficult the cooperation, traditional cooperation, cooperation, the assertion of Turkey, for example, or Iran, who have their asserted positions in the, asserting their position in the region, the role of China, which is also asserting itself in the region, with competition of the different powers, and a weakening

of

the cooperation frameworks with the north-south oppositions that are deepening. And this fragmentation,

along

with this extension of conflictuality, make it increasingly difficult to find solutions.

So,

okay, I know this is not reassuring, but this is what you said. So I think, honestly, that because of this fragmentation of the world,

we

should not

accept

the fragmentation of the Mediterranean space, because

this

would mean that the Mediterranean would become a border between the north and the south, a geopolitical border.

That

would be some kind of a betrayal of our common

and fight.

Let's not be blind, you know, let's not do wishful thinking, you know, but we should not be, you know, pessimistic. And we don't want the Mediterranean space to be a site where all the problems to this problem, you know, accumulate climate change, threats, conflicts in the common sea. We should not accept that.

We

mentioned we,

we, even

if we're not born here, and therefore,

I

think we, and,

and

therefore, we should not accept that. And we have a strategic lines that I would like to mention rapidly by way of conclusion. First, I heard this morning that we, we've been, uh, that they, well, we were naive. I think, well, in a strategic plan, we, we out of this with two, uh, military planning law, which, uh, made it possible to change our defense with, with a strategic priority, which is clear.

Well,

you know, and the, uh, this is, uh, you know, we have to fight for our interest to protect our territory and citizens supply line and commission line,

uh,

and work with the stability, neural stability,

but,

uh, you know, but, uh, we, sometimes they work to,

uh,

to do,

we

have a positive agenda in the region. Uh, we could improve things,

but

we have, uh, so we fight for, uh, freedom of, uh, uh, navigation. We have a high level of, uh,

uh,

uh, uh, we, we, we, we'll have a maritime, uh, presence. We work with the member states of NATO with, uh, you, we, you know, we advocate for European investment in the med region, uh, in the domain, which have to do with defense strategy, but not only.

And,

uh, and we have this agenda, uh, the bilateral level in the last few years, there has been a lot of, uh,

uh,

bilateral treaties signed with Italy, Spain,

uh,

strategic partners, partnership, uh, renewed with Greece. This, uh, work, work from one country to another is important and it's not, uh, we did, we don't have to choose between the bilateral work and what we do in more regional organization or within the opinion. Uh, we,

and

we also have regional, uh, discussion dialogue framework. Everything is complicated in the region, but the new, the five plus five is a dialogue framework,

very

efficient and the,

and

then

there

are other formats that should be reinvented, but should exist. You know, the med nine is a format for major issues,

the

summit of the two shores, the forum, uh, of civil societies, and you are the representatives.

And

of course, and I conclude on this, uh, and the, the strategic dialogue of the future and just a word, a quick word. What's amazing and amazingly important in everything was said today is that, uh, the understanding is the way we talk, the way we, uh,

uh,

we say we can talk, we talk, we say, you know,

uh,

having a dialogue without getting mad, you know,

but on

difficult topics discussed in the today, very,

I've

had a peaceful debate, so peaceful debate, serene, and obviously this is the key.

And

I'm back to what,

uh,

a young person who took the floor early on.

Well,

to the question which was asked, what, what do we share? Because what can we share between the north and the south and, uh, in med countries? Well, the answer was we need,

uh,

a dialogue without interference. I found that

most

interesting as, uh, as a concept

you

do an intermediate dialogue, north, south, east, west,

which

is not done by the others, but by the middle and civil societies you represent and by major countries. And this is the, uh, I hope I will be able to help you. So it will be more international and at the open scale, because I think the discussions are essential to fight against all misunderstanding, which contribute to defragmentation of what could be common. Thank you.