France is creating a paid, voluntary military service for young people and aims to enroll up to 50,000 of them over the next decade, President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Thursday.
The announcement came days after the French Army chief, Gen. Fabien Mandon, set off a national uproar for saying that France must accept the possible loss of its children in a potential future conflict. Those comments were made against the backdrop of a growing threat from Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“There is a generation ready to stand up for their country, and our military is the natural outlet for this desire to serve,” Mr. Macron said in a speech on Thursday as he visited a mountain infantry brigade in Varces-Allières-et-Risset, a small town in the French Alps near Grenoble, in southeastern France.
“In this uncertain world where force prevails over law and war is a reality, our nation cannot be afraid, ill-prepared or divided,” he added.
Open to men and women, the voluntary service is expected to last 10 months, including one month of training, Mr. Macron said. Volunteers will receive a monthly stipend, a uniform and gear, he said.
At the end of their service, volunteers will be able to join the active army or the military reserve.
The army, formed by 200,000 active personnel and about 45,000 reservists, hopes to enroll 3,000 volunteers next year. Young people will be able to apply during a mandatory mobilization day, and the army will select the most motivated and most suited to their needs, Mr. Macron said.
France, where military conscription was eliminated in 1997, is following in the footsteps of other European countries that have bolstered their armed forces since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or are debating how to do so.
Mr. Macron did not explicitly mention Russia in his speech, but he said that “at a time when all our European allies are moving forward in the face of a threat that weighs on us all, France cannot remain immobile.”
In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said that efforts were being made to make a form of military training available for every adult man. Denmark has begun drafting women. In Germany, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz has pledged to build “the strongest conventional army in Europe,” Parliament is set to debate a bill to create a program similar to the one Mr. Macron announced.
In France, General Mandon, the army chief, warned a gathering of mayors that Russia appeared to be preparing for a confrontation in 2030 and that local officials should spread the word and encourage young people to enlist.
“We have all the knowledge, all the economic and demographic strength to dissuade the Moscow regime from trying its luck further afield,” he said. But what France lacks, he added, is “the spirit that accepts that we will have to suffer to protect what we are.” If the country “wavers because we are not ready to accept losing our children,” then “we are, indeed, at risk,” he said.
Politicians across the spectrum criticized General Mandon’s comments as unnecessarily alarmist and belligerent. Mr. Macron defended him in an interview with RTL radio this week, arguing that the comments had been distorted and that French people were not about to be sent to fight in Ukraine. But “we must strengthen the pact between the army and the nation,” he said.
Le Monde, a leading daily newspaper, wrote in an editorial last week that there was “nothing shocking” about helping mayors understand “how they can participate in the national defense effort.”
“But in the current political climate, ravaged by the effects of the dissolution of the National Assembly and budgetary pressure, teaching about defense is like walking through a minefield,” the newspaper added, referring to the lower house of Parliament, which has been deeply fractured since legislative elections in 2024.
That has impeded its ability to address a ballooning debt and deficit. Lawmakers have been fiercely debating the budget, which has to be passed before the end of the year.
Even so, the government has vowed to increase military spending.
One poll published in March by the Ipsos polling institute found that 86 percent of French people were in favor of reinstating some kind of military service — though only 53 percent would support a compulsory one. A similar poll published this month by the Elabe polling institute found that 73 percent were in favor of a voluntary military service.
Mr. Macron’s announcement on Thursday was his second attempt since he first took office in 2017 to create some form of national service for young people.
During his first term, he introduced the universal national service, a monthlong program with two weeks of military-style training and two weeks of community service. It began a version in 2019 and was initially intended to become compulsory.
But a report published last year by France’s high auditing institution said it was badly enacted, too costly and lacked a clear strategy. The government dropped the idea in September.
Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.
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