VARCES, France (AP) — President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday unveiled a new program meant to bolster France’s armed forces by training thousands of volunteers aged 18 and 19 starting next year, part of a broader response to concerns over Russia’s threat to European nations beyond the war in Ukraine.
The young volunteers will serve in uniform for 10 months in France’s 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.
“A new national service is set to be gradually established, starting from this summer,” Macron said. “In 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.”
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.
A path for reservists
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.
They will then join the military reserve and continue their education or start working.
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.
Conscription, which France ended in 1996, is not being considered.
Only under “exceptional circumstances” 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.
Retired Gen. Jean-Paul Paloméros, a former head of the French Air Force, said training the young volunteers could take a toll on the French military’s already stretched resources. But he said the new program would help France better prepare for future threats.
“It’s good, it’s a difficult path,” especially because it requires financing and other resources, he said in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “But 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’t come as a free lunch.”
Macron previously said France is seeking to boost its defenses as Russia’s war in Ukraine puts the European continent at “great risk.”
A growing sense of threat
France’s new army chief of staff, Gen. Fabien Mandon, last week sent a warning about the nation’s need to get prepared to “lose its children” in the event of a potential conflict with Russia – words that prompted an outcry across the political spectrum.
Russia annexed 20% of Georgia’s territory in 2008, Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Gen. Mandon said.
“Unfortunately, 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,” he said.
France to increase defense spending
Macron has announced 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra military spending in the next two years.
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.
The planned defense budget for the 2026-2030 period includes an additional expenditure of over 2 billion euros for the national service, Macron said.
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 80,000 by 2030.
European nations bolster military capabilities
France is not the only European nation bolstering its military capabilities.
Germany is redoubling its efforts to attract more recruits, notably via a new voluntary military service. The plan remains to be approved by parliament.
Belgium’s 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.
Poland has recently started rolling out a new voluntary military training program and aims to train 100,000 volunteers per year from 2027 as it seeks to build an army of reservists with worries about Russia growing. It isn’t considering a return to universal military service, but rather a reserve system.
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.
___
AP journalist John Leicester in Paris contributed to the story.
