NEWS FROM THE FRONT December 2018

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News From The Front:

Operation Sentinel

French Homeland Security Operation: Insights from 

Colonel Pierre-Olivier Marchand

Interview by Mr. Phillip Andrews

Senior Military Analyst

Center for Army Lessons Learned

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Cover photo credit: Cellule Communication 35e Régiment d'Artillerie Parachutiste
Background

Operation Sentinel began in January 2015 after Islamic extremist groups conducted 

attacks on the weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket. 

The French President, François Hollande, declared a state of emergency and ordered 

10,000 troops to assist the civilian authorities with defending the French homeland. 

The soldiers were responsible for patrolling areas, protecting key infrastructures, and 

assisting police forces when responding to terrorist attacks. The patrols also served to 

deter future terrorist threats and to reassure the population.

This interview, conducted by the Center for Army Lessons Learned, captures the 

insights from Colonel Pierre-Olivier Marchand, French Army, who was commander of an 

artillery regiment in the 11th Airborne Brigade when tasked with leading one of the task 

forces responsible for conducting Operation Sentinel.

Colonel Pierre-Olivier Marchand

Q. What was your unit mission?

Colonel Marchand: My unit was called Task Force (TF) East (Groupement Est) and 

was deployed April through June 2017 east of Paris. At the time, I was commanding a 

Regiment in the 11th Airborne Brigade.

The TF East mission was to “support the homeland security forces engaged in the fight 

against terrorism”. For that we had to “protect, deter, and reassure” the whole area of 

responsibility (AOR) which was three departments (77, 93, 94), and included 500 sites 

to monitor. Among them the two Parisian airports, the Stadium of France (Stade de 

France), and the EuroDisney surroundings.

The TF East was constituted with the headquarters of my regiment and consisted of 30 

personnel organized in the standard staff sections of S1, S2, S3, S4, S5, and S6. Within 

the task force were thirteen companies (coys). Two of the companies were from my 

regiment, and six were from other regiments within the brigade. The remaining five 

companies were from other brigades.

Q. What guidance did you receive from your higher headquarters that you used 

for planning? 

Colonel Marchand: I think it is useful to keep in mind that this Operation Sentinelle was 

launched just after the terrorist attacks against Charlie Hebdo (a satirical weekly 

newspaper) and a kosher supermarket in January 2015. Sentinelle is a military 

operation nested in the interagency counter-terrorism plan called Vigipirate.

Since the mission began in January 2015, the situation has evolved and new 

Operational Planning Orders (OPOs) have been issued periodically as the operation is 

in a permanent evolution. We received Operational Planning Order (OPO) 8 from our 
higher headquarters as a “requisition” in which the civilian authority requests the support 

of the armed forces. 

We did the planning at the regimental level before being deployed, then we had a back 

brief to the Ile de France (IdF) headquarters. We delivered a mission brief to the units 

assigned to the task force, and we issued our own OPO (OPO GPT Est, T20). The Task 

Force also issued our administrative rules (Règlement de Service Intérieur), which 

covered administrative aspects of the mission such as days off, daily life, etc.

Q. What were the rules of engagement (ROE)?

Colonel Marchand: The ROEs, or as we called them, the rules of the use of force 

(REF), were based on the principle of legitimate defense extended to a third person. 

There is a good example of that in Valence, on 1st January 2016, when Sentinel soldiers 

opened fire on a driver that deliberately sped his vehicle against troops and the mosque 

they were protecting.

These rules were updated in 2016, as a lesson learned from the attacks in November 

2015, and in accordance with the new homeland security law (loi de sécurité intérieure). 

Thanks to them, we are able to act in a larger spectrum, adapted to the operational 

situation. The weapons were “loaded, not ready,” and the soldiers were patrolling as if 

they were deployed in an overseas operation. To my mind, it makes total sense, 

because whether the same soldier is deployed to Mali or Paris, he is facing the same 

enemy. My motto about opening fire was “neither inhibited, neither a gunslinger.”

Q. How did you interact and coordinate your operations with other elements 

(civilian agencies, police, adjacent army units, etc.)?

Colonel Marchand: At a military level, the three task forces in Ile de France (IdF) 

region were reporting to the IdF headquarters (HQ), which is the headquarters of the 

Paris military governor (the Gouverneur Militaire de Paris), which existed before the 

terrorist attacks in January 2015 and was not created for Sentinelle. These three task 

forces had clear boundaries, and the S2s and S3s were constantly exchanging 

information.

We coordinated our operations with the police through a liaison officer in each 

departmental headquarters (Direction Territoriale de la Securité de Proximité, DTSP 93 

and DTSP 94) and, of course, directly on the ground.

We were working closely with the Firefighters in Paris (Brigade des Sapeurs Pompiers 

de Paris, BSPP), and had a liaison officer at their operational headquarters. This is a 

key place to be, in order to enhance the situational awareness when it gets confusing 

on the ground.The Paris Firefighters are military, and that helps a lot from a cultural 

perspective. 

One point, which is key with the civilian authorities (préfets), is to help them understand 

and implement our “effect-based approach” to employing military forces. The civilian 

authorities need to ask for an effect on the ground, not a specific task or a given number 
of personnel, and we, as military professionals, will propose the adequate course of 

action to reach the desired effect.

Photo: Cellule Communication 35e Régiment d'Artillerie Parachutiste

A key challenge when the Operation Sentinelle began in January 2015 was to explain to 

the non-military people that a mobile course of action (patrols), which increases the 

commander’s freedom of action, is better than static guard posts, which increases 

vulnerability of the soldiers. We often used this example to make them understand: in 

the military, when you are tasked to control the bridge, very often you are not standing 

on the bridge. 

Q. What were the most significant challenges you faced and how did you 

overcome them? 

Colonel Marchand: In a nutshell, the main idea is that you have to act as if you were 

deployed in an overseas operation while you are in your own country, sometimes only a 

one-hour train ride from your family. So the most significant challenges were as follows:

• Create a relationship of trust with the subordinate units, which are not coming from 

your regiment. Share information and prepare the operation as soon as possible 

before being deployed. Then conduct an interactive mission brief, have them attend 

dedicated back briefs in their own AORs, pay visits, send weekly information reports, 

and use command and control with a wide autonomy given to the subordinate units.
• Avoid monotony, keep the motivation regarding the mission, which could be a bit 

boring for soldiers, and maintain the level of branch training: some companies had 

been deployed several times since January 2015, sometimes in the same areas.

• As soon as possible, have an accurate representation of the environment thanks to 

the support of the local departmental military representative (a Délégué Militaire 

Départemental), posted in each French department. 

• Deal with logistics matters: identify some decent places to rest after a day of patrol, 

provide a roof, a bed, a shower, and one hot meal for each soldier every day (my TF 

was disseminated in 8 different locations, which were former forts and fortifications 

from the second half of the 19th century surrounding Paris), organize welfare 

activities during the days off, and maintain the 200+ commercial vehicles of the TF 

(partly through agreements with local garages).

Photo: Armée de Terre

• Submit legal complaints (by individuals and units) in cases of insult or offensive 

behavior with legal support provided by the Sentinelle Force legal advisor (LEGAD).

• Think with a counterinsurgency (COIN) mindset even in your own country: every 

attacker has to be considered a suicide bomber, even if he surrenders. Every attack 

has to be considered as a deception to another attack (maintain a global picture). 

Every explosion has to be treated as a possible chemical attack until testing can be 

completed.

• Be prepared to face the crushing need of immediate information from the 

hierarchical levels of the government. Being deployed in your own country, and 

specifically in Paris, has consequences:
- Small incidents can have a strategic dimension, because of social media or 

the political atmosphere. My tour was during the Presidential election in 2017, 

and all type of incidents may have been sensitive during that time.

- In case of a terrorist attack, senior political and military leaders want 

immediate information and will visit the scene, even if only the terrorist has 

been killed and nobody else (Museum of the Louvre, 3 February 2017; Airport 

of Orly, 18 March 2017). Regarding the attack in Orly, less than two hours 

after the Minister was there and answering questions from the media. As a 

commander you have to cope with the “fog of war” to deliver precise and 

accurate information as soon as possible, and to deal with the civilian 

authorities. In comparison, during an operation in Afghanistan, there was not 

such an impact each time an enemy was killed in action. 

Q. How did you and your troops interact in the information environment (tourists, 

local population, social media, news organizations, etc.)? 

Colonel Marchand: The challenge is to be efficient, to create an atmosphere of 

security instead of fear or stress, and to present a nice image of the nation’s Army. 

When patrolling, the soldiers are performing a kind of show—professional gesture, 

awareness of potential threats, and kindness to the people in the street.

Meanwhile, the soldiers have to be very cautious with social media regarding the image 

they give on duty, as well as what they are posting themselves during their time off. 

They all are “strategic corporals.” 

Photo: Armée de Terre
Q. What were the key factors of success?”

Colonel Marchand: I think they vary by level of command and are as follows:

• Knowledge of the local environment and good relationship with the local actors at 

the lowest level (squad level, i.e. sergeant level)

• Responsiveness (linked to the initiative at the company level, i.e. captain level)

• Accurate operational picture of both actors (linked to the immediate information 

sharing capability at the task force level, i.e. task force headquarters level)

• Immediate intervention capability (quick response force)

• Preservation of the human capital (all echelons of command)

Q. What kind of training was conducted prior to deployment? How about during 

the mission?

Colonel Marchand: Prior to deployment, the training was more focused on tactics and 

techniques such as tactical shooting exercises and hand to hand combat.

During the mission, it was more about procedures, such as radio procedures at 

individual level and execution procedures at the headquarters level, which were 

exercised using battle drills based on vignettes, and involving the task force and 

company headquarters.

Meanwhile, some branch training was conducted at the company level or centralized at 

the headquarters level (e.g. airborne proficiency jumps).

Q. What non-standard equipment was needed by your unit to accomplish its 

mission?

Colonel Marchand: Many types of non-standard equipment were used during this 

operation because of the urban and civilian environment. This equipment included 

batons for hand to hand combat, commercial vehicles, and the Auxylium information 

system0F

1 which is a real-time information App on secured smartphones.

Q. What is the role of the Reserve Component?

Colonel Marchand: What we call the Operational Reserve in France is comparable to 

the U.S. Army Selected Reserve and plays a key role.

As a Regiment Commander, the use of the Reserve maximized my workforce and 

allowed me to keep on going with other activities for the non-committed soldiers of my 

regiment, such as long artillery exercises. 

 1https://atos.net/en/2017/press-release/general-press-releases_2017_04_20/atos-ministry-defenseheart-operation-sentinelle-auxylium
From an Army-Nation relationship point of view, it is a way to include more citizens in 

the defense of their country with the service of volunteers, who are also able to help 

explain the mission to the nation once returning to civilian life.

Q. Do the soldiers have the feeling of being a target?

Colonel Marchand: The French soldiers have been attacked by the terrorists several 

times. In March 2012, a terrorist named Mohamed Merah killed three paratroopers in 

the South West of France. One year later, on 25 May 2013, Alexandre Dhaussy, a 

young French Muslim convert and al-Qaeda sympathizer, injured a French soldier in a 

knife attack. On 3 February 2015, Moussa Coulibaly attacked three French soldiers 

outside a Jewish community center in Nice, and in 2017 we had these two attacks in Le 

Louvre and Orly I mentioned before.

But our soldiers do not see themselves as targets but as shields. A guy like Abdallah ElHamahmy (terrorist attack in Le Louvre, 3 February 2017), who attacked soldiers with 

two machetes when he was controlled by the squad, would have attacked civilians. It is 

better that he attack soldiers who are able to react in the appropriate manner. 

It is difficult to say if and how many attacks have been avoided thanks to this operation, 

but I am convinced it has an effect against the “opportunity terrorists” and that it creates 

reassurance among the population rather than stress.

As a conclusion, I would like to highlight the fact that whether the same soldier is 

deployed in Mali or in Paris, he is facing the same enemy—over there at large or in 

France. The soldier is using the same assault rifle and personal equipment, and even if 

the environment is specific, there are more similarities than differences with an 

operational deployment overseas.