France to cut active overseas troops
France plans to drastically reduce the number of military personnel it deploys overseas in active theaters of war, Defense Minister Herve Morin said May 14.
"Who thinks in 15 or 20 years to come - with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disappearance of the Warsaw Pact and the enlargement of the European Union - that we will need 50,000 men in central Europe?" said Morin, at the end of parliamentary committee consultations on the matter.
France is committed until the end of 2008 to being in a position to deploy 50,000 men plus naval and air force hardware and logistical back-up at any given moment.
Without spelling out what the new figure is likely to be, Morin said President Nicolas Sarkozy had indicated his desire to cut back sharply.
"If France is still capable of sending 30,000 or 40,000 men into theatre around the Mediterranean, looking at the big picture, that would hardly turn France into a second-class military power," Morin said.
Rejecting charges that cut-backs could leave the military ill-equipped, Morin said that since the Suez Crisis of 1956, France had "never planned (to use) more than 30,000 men."
France has about 11,000 serving military personnel in areas such as Afghanistan, Lebanon or Chad.
New government proposals to lay down a military policy framework for the next 15 years are set to be published in June.
The French army is bracing itself for numbers being slashed, with France's budgetary deficit an important factor and the experience of neighbors such as Britain suggesting larger-scale cut-backs.
Morin confirmed in April the loss of 6,000 defense jobs per annum over the next six or seven years - out of a current total of 426,000 military and civilian defense ministry employees.
Source: www.defensenews.com
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments