Jean-Marc Vigilant was born on 26 February 1967 in Châlons-en-Champagne (France). He joined the French Air Force in 1986 and was a student of the Général Dorance graduating class. He graduated from the École de l’Air de Salon de Provence in 1989 with an engineering degree.
From 2005 to 2007, he was head of crisis management and peacekeeping operations for the Delegation for Strategic Affairs at the French Ministry of Defence in Paris. In 2007, he was chosen to be the first exchange officer within the Directorate General for Defence Policy of the Spanish Defence Ministry in Madrid.
After spending three years in Spain, he became the commander of the 102 Capitaine Guynemer air base in 2010 and commander of the Dijon defence base, which provided the majority of the French Ministry of Defence’s administrative training courses in the Burgundy region.
After being assigned to the Army Inspectorate in 2012, he became the head of the inspection division and the military assistant to the deputy general to the army inspector.
In 2015, he was the auditor of the NATO Defence College’s Senior Course 126 in Rome in Italy.
From 2015 to 2018, he worked as the chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation in Norfolk, Virginia, USA.
He was appointed Air Force Brigadier General in June 2018 and was then deployed to Iraq from 2018 to 2019 as the national representative for Operation Chammal, where he supervised French forces under US command in the Levant. At the same time, he was also a member of the Combined Joint Task Force Command Group for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria and was the director of civil and military operations and feedback (CJ9).
On his return from operations, he became the deputy general officer of the Directorate of Higher Military Education. In this role, he led the team in charge of drafting policies and developing a strategic plan for higher military education.
He was appointed the director of the École de Guerre in Paris on 27 July 2020.
To further his operational experience, he spent time in Djibouti in 1992 and 1994 as a reinforcement of the 04.030 Vexin fighter squadron. He also took part in Operation Crecerelle/Deny Flight in Bosnia, organised by the Combined Air Operations Centre (CAOC) in Vicenza in 1995 and Operation Epervier in Chad, as a tactical air commander and the head of the air group from 2002 to 2003. During his time as commander at the Dijon air base, the Mirage 2000-5 planes of the fighter squadron 01.002 Cigognes were involved at short notice in Operation Harmattan/Unified Protector in Libya in 2011.
As a fighter pilot, he has a total of 3,000 flying hours and 90 war missions. Air Force Brigadier General Jean-Marc Vigilant is an Officer of the Legion of Honour and an Officer of the National Order of Merit