NATO ready to welcome France back to command

[Marcus Marulus]

NATO open to return of French military

REUTERS NEWS AGENCY

September 14, 2007

BRUSSELS — NATO is ready to discuss bringing France back fully into the fold after signals from Paris it may reverse its decision 41 years ago to quit the alliance's military structures, officials said yesterday.

President Nicolas Sarkozy set the tone with a keynote foreign-policy speech last month, insisting NATO was no rival to France's ambition of a robust European Union defense capability.

Speculation that Paris is ready to reverse the 1966 decision by President Charles de Gaulle to pull out of NATO's integrated military command mounted after Defense Minister Herve Morin said Tuesday it was now time to "clarify" the French NATO role.

"Any initiative by France to get more involved and to get back into the integrated military structure could only be welcomed by NATO," alliance spokesman James Appathurai said, stressing any move would have to come from France.

"This would be a sovereign decision," said another official. "There will be no decision until someone, and that someone would have to be France, puts it on the table."

In a move that has cast a long shadow over France's presence in the trans-Atlantic alliance, Gen. de Gaulle on March 10, 1966, told allies he was pulling personnel out of NATO military headquarters in a row over command arrangements.

France had refused to integrate its air defenses into the NATO system or allow the United States to station nuclear arms in France. The dispute triggered the shifting of NATO's headquarters from Paris to its current home in Brussels.

France partially reintegrated under President Jacques Chirac in the 1990s, reintroducing some 120 officers to military commands in Belgium and the United States, and taking part in meetings of national defense chiefs and joint NATO exercises.

But it remains absent from NATO forums such as the Defense Planning Committee and the Nuclear Planning Group in a way which Mr. Morin said left France punching below its weight in the body.

"France is indeed in NATO and is a good pupil," Mr. Morin told a defense event in Toulouse on Tuesday. He noted France's status as a major troop contributor to NATO operations and as one of the few allies who fulfill alliance targets for defense spending.

"But we are not getting the full benefit, notably in terms of influence and command posts," he said.

Mr. Morin noted possible drawbacks, ranging from the cost to France in supplying more personnel to a potential loss of face internationally if France was no longer perceived as a "stand-alone" military power in its own right.

Alliance diplomats note France has just taken the command of the 16,000-strong NATO-led peace force in Kosovo and has in the past played a command role in its larger Afghan peacekeeping operation.

France could seek assurances from allies — not just the United States but more Atlanticist countries ranging from Britain to Poland — that efforts to build a proper EU defense capability would not suffer as a result of it rejoining NATO.

Concrete steps may have to await publication in March of a wide-ranging "White Book" on French defense sector reform being prepared by a committee under defense analyst Jean-Claude Mallet.

Mr. Mallet is tentatively scheduled to visit NATO headquarters for talks with Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Thursday, and alliance diplomats note that the publication of the White Book comes a month before a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania.

[source]

[Cirrus]

President Nicolas Sarkozy set the tone with a keynote foreign-policy speech last month, insisting NATO was no rival to France's ambition of a robust European Union defense capability.

[Lucas Corso]

NATO ready to welcome France back to command
SUSAN BELL IN PARIS

FRANCE is set to once again become a full member of NATO after strong indications from the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, that he will soon make a historic move by ending his country's 41-year boycott of the alliance's integrated military command.

In a foreign policy speech last month, Mr Sarkozy said he would shortly take "very strong" initiatives to build up European defence and renew the NATO military alliance, while giving France "its full place" in the organisation, insisting NATO was no rival to France's ambition of a robust European defence capability.
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"France is a country that contributes a lot, is often among the countries that contribute the most, and that also means to our military operations," James Appathurai, a NATO spokesman told reporters in Brussels yesterday.

"It's up to France to decide if it will formally integrate into the military structure," Mr Appathurai said. "It would of course be welcomed by NATO, but I underline that things are working fine at the moment."

However, Hervé Morin, the French defence minister criticised France's existing role and called for a "change in France's political behaviour within NATO".

"We are too often the ones who quibble and shilly-shally as though we wanted to give the impression that we wanted to prevent NATO from changing," Mr Morin said.

One of the founding members of the 1949 alliance, France withdrew from NATO's integrated military command on 10 March, 1966 upon the orders of General Charles de Gaulle who pulled out personnel following a row over command arrangements, casting a long shadow over France's presence in the organisation. General de Gaulle protested at the United States' hegemonic role in NATO and objected to what he perceived as a special relationship between the US and the United Kingdom.

Under Mr Sarkozy's predecessor, president Jacques Chirac, France made moves to partially reintegrate in the 1990s by reintroducing some 120 officers to military commands in Belgium and the US and taking part in meetings of national defence chiefs and joint NATO exercises.

Mr Morin stressed that France is considered "one of NATO's best pupils". It contributes approximately 11 per cent of the budget - one of the few allies who fulfill alliance targets for defence spending - and makes major contributions in terms of manpower.

France took part in NATO deployments to the Balkans in the 1990s and has just taken command of the 16,000-strong NATO-led peace force in Kosovo. It is also part of the NATO-led security force in Afghanistan where it has played a command role in the past. It also helped with NATO disaster relief work following the earthquake in Pakistan two years ago.

Mr Morin noted that because France is not fully integrated into the command and remains absent from NATO forums such as the Defence Planning Committee and the Nuclear Planning Group, it is punching below its weight in terms of influence and command posts.

He outlined the pros and cons for France becoming a full member of NATO. The pros included more responsibilities, greater capacity to "usefully direct change in NATO" and influence the organisation's military operations in which France is engaged. Possible drawbacks include the cost of supplying more personnel and the risk of "weakening France's international position".
HINT OF A FRENCH THAW AFTER DECADES OF COLD-SHOULDERING NATO

ON 17 September, 1958, the French president, Charles de Gaulle, sent a memorandum to the US president, Dwight Eisenhower, and the prime minister, Harold Macmillan. In it he argued for the creation of a tripartite directorate that would put France on an equal footing with the United States and the UK, and also for the expansion of NATO's coverage to include geographical areas of interest to France, most notably Algeria, where France was waging a counter-insurgency and sought NATO assistance.

He did not consider their response to be satisfactory and snubbed the Allies - who had enabled him to liberate his country from the Nazis - embarking on an independent defence program.

More recently France has argued that NATO requires UN Security Council approval before acting - something the US and UK find unacceptable because of Russia and China's veto powers.

Despite the political difficulties with Afghanistan, France, under its new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, appears more willing to work with the NATO operation there.

France has said it will redeploy its bombers in the south to help the British, Canadian, Dutch and US forces.

Source: Scotsman.com News - NATO ready to welcome France back to command

Now the neoconization of France is nearly done

[Marcus Marulus]

I concur with Lucas Corso: this is a sad sign of the ultimate subjugation of Europe.

If these developments continue in the same direction, Europe, officially embodied in the parasitical and voracious organism called EU, is very likely soon to become what I use to term a mere caricature of the United States of America.

[Errigal]

It should be the other way around; the other Nato members should be leaving rather than France rejoining.

Originally Posted by Lucas Corso

Now the neoconization of France is nearly done

After Germany, France and Russia resisted the Anglo-American push for war in Iraq, "neoconization" became a top priority. The teacher's pet Merkel is in Germany, and now the greasy little sales representative for the American Way of Life (France) is in the Presidential Palace.

[Savorgnan]

Originally Posted by Plethon

If these developments continue in the same direction, Europe, officially embodied in the parasitical and voracious organism called EU, is very likely soon to become what I use to term a mere caricature of the United States of America.

I'll even use the word "digestion". This idea of matching a so-called institutional "Europe" with the US "model" goes back to Jean Monnet, founder of the EU and oviously ferocious anti-nationalist. Later, others followed the trend, like former president Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing. In France the medias are of course 125% pro-EU.