You expressed confusion about why France would claim to be preparing for war with North African or Near East states. I'm not making any claims about their effectiveness in combat, just that they probably do expect to take part in certain conflicts in those regions, should they happen. Whether they'd be useful once there, whether the conflict would last long enough for them to even show up, et c., are other matters.
Ukraine is contributing to this attitude, I expect. Western states at least want to project the image that they would, given enough pushing from Russia and others, intervene, in order to (they hope) make them think twice about further expansion. Exercises aren't just about actual preparation, but about sending messages. The intended audience may be domestic and foreign, and in this case they seem to be pretty up-front about some of the intended recipients.
More directly, I don't think it's true that there's no possible level of aggression from certain states that wouldn't draw an actual military response from France, even well into Eastern Europe, the Near East, and North/West Africa (and, in such a case, almost certainly some of France's allies would be involved as well, outside smaller conflicts in West Africa particularly). Exercises and public statements about their purpose may be designed to make potential adversaries less certain about just how far they can go without crossing that line, while also providing actual preparation should a conflict happen. They're saying (bluffing, or not) that they're preparing for exactly the kind of greater intervention you're talking about. That's why they'd hold exercises like this and make the statements they have about them.
This and my earlier posts are an explanation for why France would, very publicly, hold exercises with the stated purpose that they did. Obviously they know Turkey and North African states aren't going to invade France herself. They're not preparing for an invasion by Tunisia. They're sending a message about the regions they will defend (claim they will defend, of course—the seriousness of this posturing is untested, but the new stance seems to promote the idea that they are now more serious), and which states they want to know they're concerned about—apparently Turkey, and with Turkey, implicitly, Russia, either defending them from Russia or defending against a Russia-aligned Turkey, which relationship is seemingly going to continue being a major component of European politics indefinitely, as it has been the last couple centuries.
Ukraine is contributing to this attitude, I expect. Western states at least want to project the image that they would, given enough pushing from Russia and others, intervene, in order to (they hope) make them think twice about further expansion. Exercises aren't just about actual preparation, but about sending messages. The intended audience may be domestic and foreign, and in this case they seem to be pretty up-front about some of the intended recipients.
More directly, I don't think it's true that there's no possible level of aggression from certain states that wouldn't draw an actual military response from France, even well into Eastern Europe, the Near East, and North/West Africa (and, in such a case, almost certainly some of France's allies would be involved as well, outside smaller conflicts in West Africa particularly). Exercises and public statements about their purpose may be designed to make potential adversaries less certain about just how far they can go without crossing that line, while also providing actual preparation should a conflict happen. They're saying (bluffing, or not) that they're preparing for exactly the kind of greater intervention you're talking about. That's why they'd hold exercises like this and make the statements they have about them.
This and my earlier posts are an explanation for why France would, very publicly, hold exercises with the stated purpose that they did. Obviously they know Turkey and North African states aren't going to invade France herself. They're not preparing for an invasion by Tunisia. They're sending a message about the regions they will defend (claim they will defend, of course—the seriousness of this posturing is untested, but the new stance seems to promote the idea that they are now more serious), and which states they want to know they're concerned about—apparently Turkey, and with Turkey, implicitly, Russia, either defending them from Russia or defending against a Russia-aligned Turkey, which relationship is seemingly going to continue being a major component of European politics indefinitely, as it has been the last couple centuries.