France will introduce voluntary conscription from next summer, President Emmanuel Macron has announced.
Standing in front of a line-up from the Mountain Infantry Brigade in Varces, near Grenoble, the French president said: “Whenever history demands it, the youth of France have committed themselves and mobilised.”
“Volunteers will be selected by the armed forces, which will choose the most motivated and those who best meet their needs.”
“They will serve under military command and will be provided with a uniform, pay and equipment.”
From 2027, the scheme will be extended to include the navy, national police and Paris fire department.
His speech was greeted not by applause but by the singing of the French national anthem La Marseillaise, a capella, by the president and the assembled members of the armed forces.
“My ambition for France is to reach 50,000 young people by 2035.”
– President Emmanuel Macron
The announcement comes after France’s most senior military general sparked uproar by suggesting French society should be ready to sacrifice its children in the name of defence last week.
“If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept – let’s be honest – to lose its children, to suffer economically because defence production will take precedence, then we are at risk,” said the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Fabien Mandon.
France is the latest in a line of European countries where the narrative on military service appears to have shifted since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
For many countries in continental Europe, the risk that Russia won’t stop with Ukraine feels all too real.
The conservative-led German government announced plans for a voluntary scheme earlier this month.
From next year, all 18-year-old men in Germany will be required to fill out a questionnaire – women can choose if they want to do so – indicating their willingness to serve. A programme of medical screening will follow.
But full conscription would be difficult and costly. Germany, which had mandatory military service in place until 2011, no longer has the facilities to house large numbers of new conscripts at a time.
Taking all young people out of employment and education would cost the German economy up to €79 billion per year, according to an analysis by the Institute for Economic Research in Munich.
There is also a question over whether serving military personnel could be spared for the training of thousands of young civilians.
“The objective is in summer 2027 to be ready to muster an entire year of young men,” said the German Defence Minister, Boris Pistorius, referring to the voluntary scheme.
“Everybody is watching what we are doing. I am in close contact with [French Prime Minister] Sébastien Lecornu and his successor [as Defence Minister] and of course with [the] UK and with other countries and they are all watching what we are doing.”
The German model might be one other countries can copy, Boris Pistorius suggested.
“As a sovereign nation there cannot be limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces that would leave the country vulnerable to future attack and thereby also undermining European security.”
– European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen
Some who went through military service before have questioned the value of it.
Whilst one person we spoke to subsequently spent a decade serving in the army, others have shared anecdotes about whiling away the hours playing card games – or trying to stay awake at their posts out in the countryside.
Retaining military personnel, even during peacetime, is also a problem for many European countries.
Former Nato adviser, Chris Kremidas-Courtney, who is now a Senior Visiting Fellow at the European Policy Centre, has warned that Europe’s militaries are “losing talent faster than they can recruit”.
“Unless governments prioritise retention, Europe risks building hollow forces that look strong on paper but can’t deliver when it matters.”
The UK’s Strategic Defence Review did not overtly mention conscription, but suggested that offering military ‘gap years’ might be an idea worth pursuing to help overcome shortfalls.
The number of new recruits into the British armed forces has fallen by one-third over the past five years, according to figures from the Ministry of Defence.
Australia already has a gap year programme. It could be an “exciting model from which to learn,” Britain’s MOD said.
The further east you go, however, the more seriously mandatory conscription is taken.
Finland, with its 830-mile border with Russia, has never abandoned its conscription programme, which is even written into the nation’s constitution.
For women in Finland it remains voluntary, but all men aged between 18 and 60 are liable for military service.
The Finnish government is considering raising the upper age to 65. It estimates that doing so would increase reserves to one million people by 2031 out of a current total population of around 5.6 million.
Sweden is among very few countries that compels both men and women to take part in military service. Like all other European countries with conscription, there are alternative forms of national service for those who opt out or cannot take part for health reasons.
The three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – only gained independence from Russia in 1991 and are amongst Europe’s biggest spenders on defence as a proportion of their GDP.
Conscription in Estonia lasts a minimum of eight months. Conscripts are trained with the “main skills” necessary to become a “fighter”. There is also both a practical and theory exam.
Trump’s initial peace plan for Ukraine caused alarm in Europe last week, not least because it proposed limiting Ukraine’s army to 600,000.
It is understood that the Europeans pushed back on that figure during talks in Geneva over the weekend.
It is Russia’s army that should be capped, not Ukraine’s, retorted the EU’s foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, yesterday.
“As a sovereign nation there cannot be limitations on Ukraine’s armed forces that would leave the country vulnerable to future attack and thereby also undermining European security,” European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, warned.
Across Europe, governments are working to beef up not just their defence spending, but their military personnel too.
France plans to start small, training perhaps between 2,000 to 3,000 people in military basics in the first year of the scheme.
“My ambition for France is to reach 50,000 young people by 2035,” said President Macron.
Conscription will be financed out of a €2 billion increase in military funding already announced.
“National service will benefit young people, the armed forces, and the nation,” Macron said.
It will revitalise the army, he added, “an efficient and modernised army, capable of facing risks in any situation. An army with an active core and a trained and selected youth force.
“This is what we must aim for, and we will achieve it starting next summer.”
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