Pierre, Hervé De la 9e DIC à la 9e BIMa. 80 ans d'une brigade tournée vers l'avenir

The French 9th Marine Infantry Brigade, an army unit, is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year and the 60th anniversary of its establishment in the west of France. As the successor to the "Blue Division", which had distinguished itself at the Battle of Bazeilles in 1870, the 9th Colonial Infantry Division was created in North Africa in July 1943. It took part in the liberation of France and was deployed in Indochina from 1945. It was decommissioned in 1946, revived as a brigade in 1963 and has since taken part in all French military operations: Chad, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, ex-Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Ivory Coast, Central Africa, Afghanistan, Libya, Mali... In May 2023, a colloquium in Dinard, in the immediate vicinity of the place where his general staff was located, brought together a panel of experts to consider the future of the 9th in the light of its past. The originality of this meeting lay in the fact that historical case studies were combined with the most advanced futurological research: Scorpio transformation, distributed command, lessons learnt from the war in Ukraine... The result is a unique work: in terms of content, because the analyses of historians and political scientists are supplemented by the statements of the actors; in terms of form, because this lively material is embedded in a rich iconography that expresses the experiences of the marines, bison, bigors, pioneers and naval ship messengers.