France To Overhaul Armed Forces
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
PARIS — France will announce a major overhaul of its armed forces today, cutting more than 50,000 jobs in the three services and doubling funding for intelligence gathering.
The review, to be unveiled in Paris by President Sarkozy, comes as France prepares to use its six-month presidency of the European Union to negotiate what amounts to a “timeshare” arrangement with Britain over the two country’s military resources.
Mr. Sarkozy is expected to set out how France will respond to the threats of the 21st century, arguing that the country needs a slimmer and more mobile defence capacity, with the ability to intervene quickly in trouble spots from Africa to central Asia.
He will say that French military thinking has been slow to adapt to the changing strategic environment, and much of its equipment still dates from a time when the main danger was an attack from communist eastern Europe.
