French President Emmanuel Macron is set to restore military service, this time on a voluntary basis, decades after France ended conscription. The decision comes as Europe faces rising security threats and fears of Russian expansion beyond Ukraine. In his address from an infantry brigade in the Alps, Macron will outline a ‘new form of national service,’ starting small but aiming for tens of thousands of recruits annually. The move echoes calls from France’s top general warning that Europe must prepare for possible conflict by 2030. Is this a turning point for France’s defense policy? And what does it mean for Europe’s readiness against Moscow’s ambitions? Watch.
00:00President Emmanuel Macron is set 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.
00:16Almost three decades after France scrapped conscription, the head of state is due to lay out the change in a speech from 1,100 GMT on a visit to an infantry brigade stationed in the Alps in southeastern France, said a presidential official asking not to be named.
00:34The announcement will come more than three and a half years into Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with Macron and other French officials warning that Moscow risks not stopping at Ukraine's borders.
00:46France's top general, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Fabien Mandon, sparked uproar at home by warning that France must be ready to lose its children, adding that Russia is preparing for a confrontation by 2030 with our countries.
01:01Macron told the RTL broadcaster he would be announcing a transformation of national service into a new form but did not provide further details.
01:11A source with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named, told AFP 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.
01:26It will start slowly, said the source.
01:29This new form of national service will be on a voluntary basis, said a presidential official.
01:35An advisor to Macron, also requesting anonymity, emphasized it would be launched at a time of tight budget constraints.
01:43Its implementation will therefore be phased in over time, said the advisor, promising a realistic project that takes into account our current resources.
01:54While 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.
02:15While others such as Denmark have toughened its terms, there 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.
02:32Military 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.
02:43The 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.
02:58Accused of warmongering by the left, General Manden has expressed no regret over his comments last week, saying the aim was to alert and prepare amid a rapidly deteriorating context.
03:11Manden argued on Saturday that the reactions to his comments show that this is something that was perhaps not sufficiently perceived in our population.
03:19But ahead of the announcement, the president said he needed to dispel any notion.
03:24We are going to send our young people to Ukraine.
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