A second French soldier serving with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Lebanon has died from wounds sustained in a weekend ambush attributed to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. President Emmanuel Macron announced on Wednesday that Corporal Anicet Girardin, 31, a specialist dog-handler from the 132nd Cynotechnical Infantry Regiment based in Suippes, eastern France, died from his injuries after being evacuated to France on Tuesday in critical condition. Hezbollah has denied any involvement in the attack.
The ambush took place on Saturday in the town of Ghandouriyeh in southern Lebanon, targeting a patrol of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, known by its French acronym UNIFIL. The peacekeepers were on a mission to clear a route of improvised explosive devices when they came under sustained fire at close range. Staff Sergeant Florian Montorio was killed outright, while Girardin was gravely wounded as he moved to assist his fallen section leader, himself then being struck. Two other French soldiers were also injured in the attack. Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin described Girardin — a father of a two-year-old child, who had previously served in Lebanon in 2019 and later in Mali — as "conscientious, discreet and highly dependable." A national tribute to Montorio is scheduled for Thursday at his regiment in Montauban, southwestern France.
Macron and UN Secretary-General António Guterres have both formally attributed responsibility for the attack to Hezbollah. Lebanon's President Joseph Aoun condemned the incident and expressed condolences, while Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, during a visit to Paris, pledged to follow the investigation personally and warned that "such acts cannot go unpunished." The French Foreign Ministry called on all parties to guarantee the safety of peacekeepers, reaffirming France's commitment to supporting a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah that came into effect on 17 April.
Girardin is the third French soldier to die since a broader regional conflict, which France characterises as a war led by Israel and the United States against Iran, escalated on 28 February. A third soldier, Major Arnaud Frion, was killed in mid-March by a drone strike attributed to a pro-Iranian militia near Erbil in Iraq's Kurdistan region, where he was participating in a counter-jihadist training mission.
Established in 1978, UNIFIL deploys more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 50 countries to patrol the Blue Line — the UN-demarcated boundary between Lebanon and Israel — and to help de-escalate tensions in one of the region's most volatile border zones. The force's mandate has grown increasingly fraught in recent months amid ongoing military activity in southern Lebanon. The deaths have prompted sharp political debate in France, with opposition voices calling on the government to authorise stronger rules of engagement for soldiers under fire and to take a firmer stance toward armed groups operating in the country.