Master Sergeant Florian Montorio lost his life on Saturday in South Lebanon, in an attack for which “everything suggests that the responsibility lies with Hezbollah”, said the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron. Hezbollah denies any involvement. Three other soldiers were injured.
Who was he?
Staff Sergeant Montorio was attached to the 17the Parachute engineering regiment of Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne). “He was on a mission to open a route to a UNIFIL post isolated for several days by the fighting in the area,” said Catherine Vautrin, the Minister of the Armed Forces on X (ex-Twitter). This “non-commissioned officer” was “experienced” had already been “deployed several times in operations”, according to the minister.
“The Nation bows before the memory of one of its sons who gave his life for it. My thoughts are with his partner, his children, his loved ones and his brothers in arms,” she said.
How did he die?
Florian Montorio was killed “by direct fire from a light weapon,” said Catherine Vautrin on X. “He was ambushed by an armed group at very close range,” she detailed. However, she did not specify the severity of the injuries of the three other soldiers injured in the attack.
This death comes almost a month after the death of another French soldier in the Middle East, chief warrant officer Arnaud Frion, 42, killed in the Erbil region in Iraqi Kurdistan, in a drone strike “perpetrated by a pro-Iranian militia”, according to the words of Emmanuel Macron during a national tribute.
Soon an investigation?
Emmanuel Macron spoke on Saturday with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, asking them to “guarantee the security of UNIFIL soldiers”.
The French head of state, who estimated on his
UNIFIL also calls on Lebanon to investigate the perpetrators of the “deliberate” attack against its soldiers. “An initial assessment indicates that the shooting came from non-state actors (believed to be Hezbollah),” UNIFIL said in a statement, calling on the government to “rapidly open an investigation in order to identify and bring to justice those responsible.”
The Lebanese president condemned the attack on French peacekeepers and promised to prosecute those responsible. The President of Parliament, an ally of Hezbollah, condemned the attack on UNIFIL.
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