François Lecointre was born on 6 February 1962 in Cherbourg[3][4] into a military family. His father, Yves Urbain Marie Lecointre (5 April 1932 – 17 July 1985), was a French navalofficer and submariner who served as the commandant of SNLE Le Redoutable.[5][6] One of his uncles, Hélie de Roffignac, was a cavalry officer who died in Algeria at the age of 23.[7]
From 1993 to 1996, he was a combat company commander of the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment in Vannes. As a captain, Lecointre was involved in the Opération Turquoise in 1994 in Rwanda. He commanded the 1st company of the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment (3e RIMa) in the Groupement Nord Turquoise.[11] Lecointre was also engaged with French forces under the command of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) during the Bosnian War. Under the orders of General Hervé Gobilliard and Colonel Erik Sandahl, Lecointre and Lieutenant Bruno Heluin led a bayonet charge to win the Battle of Vrbanja Bridge on 27 May 1995.[12] According to journalist Jean Guisnel, the episode turned the tide of the war and led to victory in Bosnia.[13]
From 1996 to 1999, Lecointre was an instructor at the École spéciale militaire de Saint-Cyr in Coëtquidan, Morbihan where he trained student officers in military tactics. From 1999 to 2001, he was a trainee officer at the Joint Defense College (now École Militaire). He then served in the office of the Chief of Staff of the French Army in Paris at the crops bureau of system conception forces.[14]
On 21 July 2021, Lecointre retired from active service and was succeeded by General Thierry Burkhard as Chief of Defence Staff. After a brief period outside the public eye, he was made Grand Cross and Grand Chancellor of the Order of the Legion of Honour per 1 February 2023, succeeding fellow retired General Benoît Puga.[1]
François Lecointre (dir.), Le soldat : XXe – XXIe siècle, Gallimard, coll. « Folio Histoire », 2018. With a foreword by French historian Jean-Pierre Rioux. This book is a collection of articles published in the French review of military studies : Inflexions - Civils et militaires : pouvoir dire, of which general Lecointre was a publishing director in 2015–2017.[38]
^Biography of Yves Urbain Marie Lecointre (5 April 1932 - 1985), on the site of École navale.
^Hélie de Roffignac (1936-1959), Saint-Cyr (class Franchet d'Esperey, 1955-1957), lieutenant at the 18e régiment de chasseurs à cheval, dead from burns in a forest fire in the Djebel Chélia, returning from operations, on 1 August 1959. Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, Croix de la Valeur militaire. See : Musée du Souvenir - La Saint-CyrienneArchived 26 April 2018 at the Wayback Machine. Lieutenant de Roffignac was the brother of general Lecointre's mother, Francoise de Roffignac. The Roffignac family, of ancient French nobility, gave many officers. One of them, Louis Philippe de Roffignac (1773-1846), an artillery officer, emigrated in Spain and settled in Louisiana (1800). He became a Mayor of New Orleans (1820-1828).
^J.O. No. 155 du 5 juillet 1991, NOR : DEFM9101576D.
^Jacques Morel, La France au cœur du génocide des Tutsi, Izuba édition - L'Esprit frappeur, 2010 - page 1325. On the Opération Turquoise and its political and judiciary developments, see Association France Turquoise (in French)
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