France’s Macron, eyeing geopolitical threats, set to unveil voluntary military service

By Elizabeth Pineau and Lewis Macdonald

PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron was set to unveil a voluntary military service on Thursday, overhauling a pre-existing scheme to allow France to better respond to a more unstable geopolitical outlook including possible threats from Russia.

The move is part of a broader shift across Europe, where nations who have long enjoyed the decades-long tranquillity of U.S. security guarantees are fretting about President Donald Trump’s shifting priorities and Russia’s aggressive posture.

Macron’s team have yet to give specific details of what the president will announce, but aides said it aims to bring France in line with nearly a dozen other European nations like Germany and Denmark who have launched similar projects.

NO RETURN OF CONSCRIPTION

Aides said Macron opposes obligatory national service, which then-President Jacques Chirac scrapped in 1996, and instead plans to overhaul the Service National Universel (SNU), a youth military scheme that never generated much interest.

“He does not wish to reintroduce compulsory national service,” an Elysee official told reporters. “He wants to enable willing young people to learn alongside the armed forces.”

France intends to secure 100,000 reservists by 2030, aides said, up from around 47,000 as things stand. Its total miliatry force would then be around 210,000 by 2030.

Macron will unveil the measures during a visit to the 27th Mountain Infantry Brigade in Varces, in the French Alps.

The Elysee pointed to poll data suggesting high support for the armed forces among 18- to 25-year-olds, who could benefit from defence budgets that have grown from 32 billion euros in 2017 to an expected 64 billion euros in 2027.

GENERAL’S COMMENTS SHOCK THE NATION

Macron’s announcement has been overshadowed by comments from General Fabien Mandon, France’s armed forces chief, who last week caused an uproar when he said France needed to steel itself for possible future losses against Russian aggression.

“What we lack … is the strength of character to accept suffering in order to protect who we are,” he said, adding France must “accept losing its children”.

Macron sought to play down Mandon’s comments.

“We must absolutely, immediately, dispel any confused idea suggesting we are going to send our young people to Ukraine,” he told RTL radio on Tuesday, alluding to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Cedric Perrin, president of the French Senate’s foreign affairs, defence and armed Forces committee, defended Mandon.

“His remarks were taken out of context … but if being a bit blunt is necessary to make the French understand the situation we are in, then he was right to do it,” Perrin told Reuters.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter, Elizabeth Pineau, Lewis Macdonald and Michel Rose; writing by Gabriel Stargardter; editing by Mark Heinrich)