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, a 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.

[1] 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.

[3][4] He was deployed to 5th Armored Division in Germany to which he was the deputy general commanding officer in 1991, he was once in charge of updating and the design of the defence tool to which one was the design office of the army staff in 1985 as the head of Doctrine before he was the chief of staff to 1991.