The 43 listeners of 236e session in the Grand Est region of the IHEDN, with a wide range of profiles, met in Metz for the first of their 4 weeks of training on defence and national security issues.
They were welcomed to the Moselle prefecture by the prefect, Laurent Touvet, who praised their commitment. The deputy director of the IHEDN, Prefect Nicolas Basselier, then gave the traditional opening address, recalling the raison d'être of the IHEDN, in keeping with the terms of the report that accompanied its founding decree in 1936.
The Institute " will create among all its listeners a unity of feeling, thought and doctrine which will be the best guarantee of unity of action to prepare in time of peace and to ensure in time of war, the defence of the country"..
The very next day, the audience was confronted with the challenges of security, through a presentation of the national gendarmerie, a speech by Prefect Marie Aubert, Delegate Prefect for Defence and Security for the Eastern Zone, and a visit to the Cattenom nuclear power plant.
Listeners also took part in a remembrance session at the Gravelotte museum on the 1870 war. Major General Xavier Culot highlighted the lessons of that war, before Air Force Major General Vincent Breton, Director of the CICDE, explained how our armed forces are coping with the changing conflict environment.
The challenges ahead for France and Europe were outlined by Lieutenant General Yann Gravêthe, Military Governor of Metz and General Officer of the Eastern Defence and Security Zone, at the reception he hosted for the audience.
The auditors then went to Reims for the second week of the session, where they stayed in a boarding school.
