There is nothing hot in Florent Coury’s resume: a career as an HR director at Renault passed by Sciences Po, a father of three small children… But three days after the start of the Russian offensive, he decided to take on the Ukrainian forces. “Ukraine is the front line that will allow our freedoms to continue to exist in the future,” he said. “Our democratic model is worth defending.”
The 39-year-old Frenchman set out on his journey to the East. He joined the Ukrainian base and, together with citizens of Great Britain, the Baltics or even Canada, began his training: “Basic techniques, maneuvers, commands, handling of firearms … installations in the rear of the front, to release fighters with combat skills.
“They are defending their country and also the cause of our democracy.”
Florent Coury, volunteer in Ukraine
on Franceinfo
Among the several dozen Western volunteers in this unit are former soldiers and inexperienced young people, but not only: “I mean an American woman with a medical profile. She just signed up as a combat doctor.”
For the past two days, Florent Kuri has been instructed to communicate and recruit volunteers from Poland. “We are going back to the era of the International Brigades in 1936,” he says. “It is also a presence of empathy for people who feel abandoned by the West. .”
This Republican Spring activist explains that he is committed to fighting Putin’s far left and far right in France. A declared macronist, he does not exclude participation in legislative elections. But he refutes any publicity stunt of his departure to Ukraine: “We cannot simultaneously say: “politicians are there only for their own interests” and at the same time criticize someone who takes the field to convey a strong political message. You call it a springboard, I call it the courage of my ideas.”
The most difficult thing for the father of the family is the distance from relatives. According to him, his children understood his commitment. On the last evening before leaving, his elder asked him to sing Bella Ciao, the song of the resistance fighters.
A Frenchman Involved in Ukraine, Jérôme Jadot
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