Exercise of French, British soldiers in city center gets ridiculed

The part of the Orion23 war exercise, the second phase of which was launched in France on February 25 and carried out with the participation of NATO allies, in the center of the city was the subject of ridicule on social media. Videos posted on Twitter showed some 300 French and British soldiers reenacting battle scenes between pedestrians and vehicle crossings in the southern city of Cahors. It was noteworthy to see the residents of the city pass by the barrels of the soldiers, who are advancing in their uniforms in the middle of the street, opening positions and firing blanks. In the images on social media, many jokes were made about a vehicle that wanted to continue on its route because the green light was on, waiting behind the soldiers lying in the middle of the road. For this scene, a user asked, 'So who will protect these soldiers?' while another user commented, 'Is it normal for them to forget to cut off the traffic?' asked. Many users also evaluated the images as 'more like a computer game than a drill'. On the other hand, strategic intelligence site Opexnews said in a post that some of the exercisers said, 'We played the war game to please the executives.' The exercise became the subject of a cartoon French cartoonist David Buonomo, known as Dadou, mocked the exercise with a cartoon he drew. In his cartoon titled 'Orion Exercise on the Gardiole River', Buonomo likened the exercise of French soldiers to the game of Super Mario. In addition, many caps sharing on Twitter that 'the exercise has turned into a comedy' drew attention. The second leg of the Orion Military Exercise, launched in 2021 within the scope of NATO allies, was organized to cover 14 regions of France. The last stage of the second leg of the exercise, in which 7,000 soldiers from France, the US, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and England participated, was held in Cahors, Lot province, France. The exercise, which is carried out to prepare the French army for high-level conflicts, will continue in the north of the country with the participation of 12 thousand soldiers in the spring. It is stated that the exercise cost 35 million euros.