“High-intensity warfare is no longer an academic hypothesis”

It is also the port of youth, knowledge and innovation. The Méditerranée is somewhat the theatre of the world and the conscience of history. For François de Canson: “The Méditerranée is not just a sea. It is a wound and a promise. A wound, because it carries within it the trace of wars, exiles, shipwrecks and religious divisions. A promise, because it saw the birth of the three monotheisms, and because it keeps in the hearts of peoples the idea that man is never condemned to hatred. This sea, both carnal and spiritual, has seen the passage of crosses and crescents, sails and galleys, weapons and the Gospels. It was the cradle of civilisations and dogmas, empires and philosophies. And that is why it is more than a geographical space, it is a moral space, where humanity still questions its destiny.”

A PEACE NEVER TAKEN FOR GRANTED

Today, the Méditerranée concentrates all the fractures of the modern world. But, it also remains this place of fragile balance where faith, reason and memory still try to speak to each other. For the vice-president of the Région: “High-intensity warfare is no longer an academic hypothesis. It has returned to strike Europe, reminding the world that peace is never taken for granted, and that freedom is defended every day. Hostages wait in silence, families hope, children see the world collapse before even understanding it. Free peoples do not have the right to be naive: the world belongs to those who watch. And watching is first of all refusing moral confusion. Watching is more than protecting: it is holding on (...). Compassion is the conscience of the world when it wavers. It reminds us what we defend: human dignity, justice, freedom.” General de Gaulle said it: “France is only herself when she is at the forefront of the fights for the freedom of the world.” This sentence has lost none of its truth.