Faced with the resurgence of the war, the Ministry of the Armed Forces wants to strengthen its care for the wounded

2023-05-10 09:26:56

Former soldiers in the garden of the Athos house in Toulon, May 26, 2021. NICOLAS DUCAT/AFP

While the armies consider that one of their main challenges, on the horizon of ten years, is to deal with multiple or high-intensity engagements, a vast plan to improve the care of wounded soldiers must be announced, Wednesday, May 10, by the Secretary of State in charge of veterans, Patricia Mirallès, at the Hôtel des Invalides, in Paris. The stakes are high as the support for wounded soldiers, who number around 7,000 in France, is often considered by the victims and their families as an obstacle course and this parameter can weigh on the recruitment of armies. .

Made up of more than 110 measures, a number of which have already been initiated, this plan is far from being the first, but it is intended to be one of the most comprehensive since the recognition of mental war injuries, by decree, in 1992. While the care of injured soldiers represents a cost of around 800 million euros per year, the executive is thus planning to add another 170 million euros to the compensation and support systems, including 50 million through the new military programming law (LPM), the examination of which began in the Defense Committee of the National Assembly on May 9.

Among the most visible measures of this plan is the opening of Athos houses, centers that can provide unlimited support to soldiers or former soldiers suffering from psychotraumatic disorders. Currently four in number, these houses can accommodate a hundred wounded each. After Bordeaux, Toulon and Aix-les-Bains (Savoie), the last was inaugurated at the end of April in Auray (Morbihan). Six others should open by 2030, including two overseas, while there are around 3,000 soldiers suffering from mental injuries in France, according to the National Office for Combatants and War Victims.

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The national institution of the Invalides has, moreover, begun to reorganize in order to improve its offer of care for the injured on discharge from hospital. A new center for medium and long-term re-education and rehabilitation began its activity in March and should gradually ramp up. Similarly, a “village of the injured” should see the light of day at the end of 2024 within the National Defense Sports Center in Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne). A place geared towards rehabilitation through sport which will be able to accommodate a hundred people in small individual houses.

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