French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a voluntary military conscription initiative for youths between ages 18-19 across the country to help bolster the nation’s armed forces amidst escalating concerns over Russia’s threat to European stability beyond the war in Ukraine.
This initiative builds on an earlier announcement to provide French youth with a voluntary military service option, explicitly ruling out a return to conscription, which France ended in 1996.
France is seeking to boost its defences as Russia’s war in Ukraine puts the European continent at “great risk,” Macron stated.
He told radio RTL: “The day that you send a signal of weakness to Russia, which for 10 years has made a strategic choice to become an imperial power again, that’s to say advance wherever we are weak, well, it will continue to advance.”
France’s 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 100,000 by 2030, The scheme envisages engaging 3,000 people in 2026, who will only ever serve on French soil, rising to 10,000 by 2030.
