Outcry at army chief's warning France must prepare to 'lose children' in war.
"What we are lacking - and this is where you [the mayors] have a role to play - is the spirit.
The spirit which accepts that we will have to suffer if we are to protect what we are.
"We have the know-how, and we have the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the regime in Moscow," he said.
A stark warning from France's new army chief about the country "losing its children" in a potential war with Russia has sharply divided political opinion.
But they were condemned as warmongering and out-of-place by political leaders on the left as well as the nationalist right.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who heads the far-left France Unbowed party, said he "totally disagreed" with the chief-of-staff. »