"The rupture introduced by the war and the irreversibility of Russian strategic choices make it necessary to anticipate a confrontation with Moscow," the French Secretariat-General for National Defence and Security (SGDSN) said in a Strategic Review published on Wednesday (9 November).But "without having disappeared, this strategy is now coupled with a desire to engage in direct military confrontation, materialised in the war of aggression unleashed against Ukraine," the French threat assessment said.But Macron's dovish personal approach to Putin stood in contrast to the hawkish conclusions of the SGDSN, a French state security-policy unit, with some 1,000 staff at its HQ in the historic Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, despite the president's signature on the review's preamble.The anti-jihadist Operation Barkhane in Mali, which had 5,500 French soldiers in its heyday, was being wound down in favour of a constellation of smaller forces in neighbouring countries in future, Macron said in Toulon, while standing on a French warship."In the short term, the Western Balkans will probably constitute a zone of fragility that these countries may seek to exploit to divide and weaken Europe," France said."