Thierry Burkhard (born 30 July 1964) is a French Army general who has served as Chief of the Defence Staff since 22 July 2021.^[1][2] He previously served as Inspector of the French Army (2018–2019) and Chief of Staff of the French Army (2019–2021).

As an officer, Burkhard was deployed overseas a number of times. He served in the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2^e REP) and held command of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion (13^e DBLE) in Djibouti.

A native of Delle, Territoire de Belfort, Burkhard enrolled at Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1985. After a year of post-academy training, he graduated as infantry and was posted for continual service in the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment in Corsica. He served from 1989 to 1997.^[3][4][5][2]

He served in the operations command in Iraq, as operations officer in the 4th Foreign Regiment, and with the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces of Guiana. He also served in Gabon and Chad, during the Yugoslavia Crisis, and during the civil war in Côte d’Ivoire. He also served in Afghanistan on two occasions, while he was still the deputy Communications Director of the Joint Staff. He was later promoted to the command of the 13e DBLE in Djibouti.^[3][5]

Thierry Burkhard joined the Information and Public Relations Service of the Armed Forces in 2010. In 2013, he became the Joint Staff Communications Directorate Director, through which he was made the J3 of the French Joint Staff under National Intelligence as coordinator and adviser of military intelligence to the President in 2015 and the Inspector General of the Army.^[4] He was commander of the Operations Planning and Control Center. He was the Chief of Conduct in the Center for Planning and Conduct of Operations Paris before he rose to be in the commands. He later became the Chief of the French Army in July 2019.^[6][1][5]