France has named highly decorated elite infantryman Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion as the soldier killed in a Shahed drone strike on an Iraqi military base overnight.
French political leaders were united in their sympathy for the family of Chief Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion of the 7th Alpine Chasseurs, a unit of elite French infantry, who was killed in action in Irbil, Iraq overnight. Frion’s unit was stationed at a joint French-Peshmerga military base engaged in the fight against Islamic State extremists and was targeted by a drone strike using an Iranian-made Shahed suicide drone, killing one and wounding five.
The wounded troops are being repatriated from Iraq.
A statement by the French government said Chief Warrant Officer Frion was “killed when he was struck by a Shahed drone at his position”. According to a biography published by the Army, 42-year-old Frion joined up in 2004 and had a distinguished career, including five counter-terrorism tours in Mali, two tours in Afghanistan, and tours in Chad, the Ivory Coast, Niger, and finally deployed to Iraq in January of this year.
He was awarded citations for bravery in Afghanistan twice and once in Niger, and was awarded the Military Medal in 2021, France’s highest military decoration. He is survived by his wife and one child.
Frion is the first French soldier killed in action in Iraq since 2023 and the French government has said the nation is in mourning for his death. Chief of Staff of the Army General Pierre Schill said he “bows before the memory of Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion, who died for France this night”, hailing him as a “fine figure of a soldier and a leader” who “embodied the highest virtues” of France.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his condolences to Frion’s family, hailed his service, and decried attacks against French forces engaged in counter-terrorism work. But he said on Friday that there was absolutely no chance of France seeking retribution for Frion’s death, saying his intention was to remain strictly defensive on Iran.
Macron said: “Our soldiers were attacked while, as we have been doing for several years, they were fighting as part of an international coalition against the resurgence of terrorism in the region and in the service of Iraqi sovereignty… This is obviously unacceptable. Faced with the ongoing war, France’s position is purely defensive, in support of its allies, and can never justify any attack against it.”
France is “defensive” and “we are not at war with anyone”, Macron added, stating: “France will continue to demonstrate composure, calmness, determination, reliability towards our partners, protection of our citizens and defence of our interests and security”. Neither Macron nor the French government have explicitly said Frion was killed by Iran, although the drone was of Iranian type. The French government says it has launched a “technical investigation” to determine where the drone was launched from, and by whom.
The leader of France’s catch-all leftist alliance Jean-Luc Melenchon used his response to the death as a chance to harangue U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said in a statement on Friday:
The illegal war of D. Trump and B. Netanyahu, and Iran’s strategy of regional, or even global, conflagration, have claimed their first French victims.
Six French soldiers have been wounded, and Warrant Officer Arnaud Frion has been killed. We turn our thoughts of support and affection toward them, their families, their loved ones, their comrades. These soldiers were not in Iraq in connection with the conflict waged by the United States and Israel, but their deaths confirm that the regional conflagration thus triggered threatens the entire world.
We therefore warn the executive: by advancing onto the battlefields, France would become a target. This war is not ours, but our dead are. Enough!”
Others were less directly political in their tributes. Leader of the Rassemblement national (RN, National Rally) Party Marine Le Pen and her deputy Jordan Bardella expressed a sense of grief for the family and comrades of the fallen soldier and criticised the attack against French forces on legitimate counter-terrorism missions.
Le Pen said: “To his family, to the wounded service members, and to their brothers in arms, I wish to express my grief and my full and complete solidarity. France cannot accept that our armed forces, which defend and protect our interests in the region, should be targeted.”
Bruno Retailleau, leader of the conservative les Républicains party hit similar notes, stating: “I think of their families, of their brothers-in-arms. Proud of our soldiers.”
French broadsheet Le Figaro notes pro-Iranian militia group Ashab al-Kahf hadn’t claimed the attack, but has announced it is targeting all French interests in the Middle East as revenge for President Macron’s decision to move up an aircraft carrier to the region for defensive purposes.
