PARIS
\nPresident Emmanuel Macron is Thursday to announce that France is restoring military service on a voluntary basis in the face of the growing threat posed by Russia and the risk of a new conflict breaking out in Europe. Almost three decades after France scrapped conscription, the head of state is due to lay out the change in a speech from 1000 GMT on a visit to an infantry brigade stationed in the Alps in southeastern France, said a presidential official, asking not to be named.
\nThe announcement will come more than three and a half years into Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Macron and other French officials warning that Moscow risks not stopping at Ukraine\u2019s borders. France\u2019s top general, armed forces chief of staff Fabien Mandon, sparked uproar at home last week by warning that France must be ready \u201cto lose its children\u201d, adding that Russia is \u201cpreparing for a confrontation by 2030 with our countries\u201d.
\nMacron told the RTL broadcaster he would be announcing a \u201ctransformation of national service into a new form\u201d on Thursday but did not provide further details. A source with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named, told media that the plan is for 2,000 to 3,000 people to be trained up in the first year, aiming to increase those signing up over time to 50,000 per year.
\n\u201cIt will start slowly,\u201d said the source. This \u201cnew form of national service\u201d will be \u201con a voluntary basis\u201d, said a presidential official. An adviser to Macron, also requesting anonymity, emphasised it would be launched at a time of tight budget constraints. Its implementation will therefore be \u201cphased in over time,\u201d said the adviser, promising a \u201crealistic\u201d project that \u201ctakes into account our current resources\u201d.
\nWhile around a dozen states have some form of conscription, the use of military service is uneven across Europe. But France would join European countries like Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania which have brought it back in recent years, while others such as Denmark have toughened its terms.
\nThere is so far no suggestion that the military service in France would be compulsory, as it was before then-president Jacques Chirac abolished conscription in 1997 as part of the reform of the army. Military service is seen as a way of bolstering armies with recruits, but also of providing a large pool of potential reservists, who could be called up in the case of a future war.
\nThe French armed forces have approximately 200,000 active military personnel and 47,000 reservists, numbers expected to increase to 210,000 and 80,000 respectively by 2030. Accused of warmongering by the left, General Mandon has expressed no regret over his comments last week, saying the aim was to \u201calert and prepare\u201d amid a \u201crapidly deteriorating\u201d context.
\nMandon argued on Saturday that the reactions to his comments \u201cshow that this is something that was perhaps not sufficiently perceived in our population\u201d. But ahead of Thursday\u2019s announcement, Macron and other officials have been at pains to douse the outcry caused by the general\u2019s forthright comments and fears that French youth were heading for the front lines. The president on Tuesday said he needed to dispel any notion \u201cwe are going to send our young people to Ukraine\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS President Emmanuel Macron is Thursday to announce that France is restoring military service on a voluntary basis in the face of the growing threat posed by Russia and the risk of a new conflict breaking out in Europe. Almost three decades after France scrapped conscription, the head of state is due to lay out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517164,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-517144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n