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Jean-Pierre Kelche is a soldier of the French Armed Forces who served as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces from 9 April 1998 until 30 October 2002.
Jean-Pierre Kelche, an general of the army was born 19 January 1942 in Mâcon, France, his family are origin of Lorraine. They moved with both of his family to Saint-Cyr in 1961 and later joined the Navy infantry.He graduated from Ecole Supérieure de Guerre in 1979 after spending about 20 year as submariner engineer before changing to army of which was after attending the Ecole Supérieure, he participated Iran-Iraq conflict. At young age, he served in the Côte d'Ivoire on french Operations and commanded a unit in Djibouti in 1973, he rose to be the senior commander in the Antilles-Guyana Staff between 1979 until 1981 of which he commands the 5th Overseas Combined Arms Regiment in Djibouti to 1987.