{"id":408694,"date":"2025-11-27T16:30:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/408694\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T16:30:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:30:16","slug":"france-plans-new-voluntary-military-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/408694\/","title":{"rendered":"France plans new voluntary military service"},"content":{"rendered":"

VARCES, France (AP) \u2014 President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday unveiled a new program meant to bolster France\u2019s armed forces<\/a> by training thousands of volunteers aged 18 and 19 starting next year, part of a broader response to concerns over Russia\u2019s threat to European nations beyond the war in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The young volunteers will serve in uniform for 10 months in France\u2019s mainland and oversea territories only, not in military operations abroad, Macron said in a speech at the Varces military base, which is located in the French Alps.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new national service is set to be gradually established, starting from this summer,\u201d Macron said. \u201cIn this uncertain world where power prevails over law and war is an ever-present reality, our nation has no right to fear, panic, unpreparedness, or division.\u201d<\/p>\n

The program will start with 3,000 youth to be selected next summer and will gradually increase to 10,000 per year by 2030. France has ambitions to reach up to 50,000 volunteers per year by 2035, a figure that will be adjusted depending on the global context, Macron added.<\/p>\n

A path for reservists<\/p>\n

Volunteers will hold military status and receive wages and equipment. After a month of training, they will be assigned for nine months to a unit in which they will perform the same missions as active military personnel, he detailed.<\/p>\n

They will then join the military reserve and continue their education or start working. <\/p>\n

Those who wish will be able to start a professional career in the active military, Macron said. Regular soldiers in France generally enlist for a 2- to 10-year renewable periods of time.<\/p>\n

Conscription, which France ended in 1996, is not being considered. <\/p>\n

Only under \u201cexceptional circumstances\u201d may parliament authorize enlisting those whose skills were identified during a one-day defense course, which all youths go through, and make national service mandatory for those people, Macron said. <\/p>\n

Retired Gen. Jean-Paul Palom\u00e9ros, a former head of the French Air Force, said training the young volunteers could take a toll on the French military\u2019s already stretched resources. But he said the new program would help France better prepare for future threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good, it\u2019s a difficult path,\u201d especially because it requires financing and other resources, he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. \u201cBut nevertheless I think it was needed somewhere to make sure that the young generations understand that freedom and peace are not taken for granted and it doesn\u2019t come as a free lunch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macron previously said France is seeking to boost its defenses as Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine puts the European continent at \u201cgreat risk.\u201d <\/p>\n

A growing sense of threat<\/p>\n

France\u2019s new army chief of staff, Gen. Fabien Mandon, last week sent a warning about the nation\u2019s need to get prepared to \u201close its children\u201d in the event of a potential conflict with Russia \u2013 words that prompted an outcry across the political spectrum. <\/p>\n

Russia annexed 20% of Georgia\u2019s territory in 2008, Ukraine\u2019s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion<\/a> of Ukraine in 2022, Gen. Mandon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, Russia today, based on the information I have access to, is preparing for a confrontation with our countries by 2030. It is organizing itself for this, it is preparing for this, and it is convinced that its existential enemy is NATO,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

France to increase defense spending<\/p>\n

Macron has announced 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra military spending in the next two years.<\/p>\n

He said France will aim to spend 64 billion euros in annual defense spending in 2027, the last year of his second term. That would be double the 32 billion euros in annual spending when he became president in 2017.<\/p>\n

The planned defense budget for the 2026-2030 period includes an additional expenditure of over 2 billion euros for the national service, Macron said. <\/p>\n

France\u2019s military currently comprises around 200,000 active personnel and over 40,000 reservists, making it the second largest in the European Union, just behind Poland. France wants to increase the number of reservists to 80,000 by 2030.<\/p>\n

European nations bolster military capabilities<\/p>\n

France is not the only European nation bolstering its military capabilities.<\/a><\/p>\n

Germany is redoubling its efforts to attract more recruits<\/a>, notably via a new voluntary military service. The plan remains to be approved by parliament. <\/p>\n

Belgium\u2019s defense minister sent a letter this month to 17-year-olds to encourage them to sign up for military service next year, with the aim to select 500 candidates between 18 and 25 to launch the program in September.<\/p>\n

Poland has recently started rolling out a new voluntary military training program and aims to train 100,000 volunteers per year<\/a> from 2027 as it seeks to build an army of reservists with worries about Russia growing. It isn\u2019t considering a return to universal military service, but rather a reserve system.<\/p>\n

Ten EU countries have compulsory military service: Austria, Cyprus, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden. Norway, which is not a member, has mandatory military service for both men and women. The length of service ranges from as little as two months in Croatia to up to 19 months in Norway.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP journalist John Leicester in Paris contributed to the story. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VARCES, France (AP) \u2014 President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday unveiled a new program meant to bolster France\u2019s armed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":408695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8703,184530,156,40783,57,192460,8132,50,257,3657,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-408694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-emmanuel-macron","9":"tag-fabien-mandon","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-france-government","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-jean-paul-palomros","14":"tag-military-and-defense","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-russia","17":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","18":"tag-world","19":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}