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A picture of a Taliban fighter in the uniform of a dead French soldier drew anger in France Wednesday as the army came under new fire over its conduct in an ambush that killed 10 paratroopers in Afghanistan last month.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday pledged to continue the fight in Afghanistan while attending a state funeral in Paris for the 10 French soldiers killed in a Taliban ambush earlier in the week. Sarkozy, who was accompanied by other French leaders at the funeral ceremony in a church at Les Invalides, said France will not give up its fight against terrorism in Afghanistan "We don't have the right to lose over there, we cannot renounce our values," he said. "We cannot let the barbarians triumph because a defeat at the other side of the world will be paid for...

An emotional President Sarkozy insisted yesterday that there would be no French wobble over Afghanistan, urging troops in Kabul to fight with fresh resolve after the loss of ten comrades. Mr Sarkozy, pale and shaken after inspecting the coffins of the young French servicemen, voiced his defiance after the wisdom of his decision to send more troops into what is widely seen as an unwinnable war was called into question. François Hollande, the Socialist Party leader, said that France “must be told what exactly our soldiers are doing in Afghanistan and how long they will be doing it for”. Survivors...

France reacted in shock on Wednesday to the death of 10 of its soldiers in an ambush in Afghanistan and questions began to be asked about the country's worst military loss in 25 years. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who flew to Kabul on Tuesday, said France was committed to its engagement in Afghanistan where it took part in the 2001 invasion to topple the Taliban. But the opposition Socialists called for a parliamentary committee to meet and doubts were expressed about the official account of the incident in which the 10 soldiers were killed and 21 wounded in a fierce mountain...

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy shakes hands with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul August 20, 2008. President Sarkozy said on Wednesday he had no regrets about sending 700 more troops to Afghanistan, after insurgents killed 10 French soldiers, the biggest single loss for foreign forces in combat since 2001. REUTERS/Olivier Laban-Mattei/Pool (AFGHANISTAN)

<p>President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday he had no regrets about sending 700 more troops to Afghanistan, after insurgents killed 10 French soldiers, the biggest single loss for foreign forces in combat since 2001.</p> <p>The troops were killed in a major battle that erupted when Taliban insurgents ambushed a French patrol just 60 km (40 miles) east of the Afghan capital on Monday. The fighting has heightened fears the militants are gradually closing in on Kabul itself.</p>

President Nicolas Sarkozy has arrived in Afghanistan to support French troops a day after one of the deadliest attacks on France's forces abroad. Ten French soldiers were killed and 21 injured in an ambush by Taleban fighters east of the capital, Kabul. Mr Sarkozy said France was committed to the fight against terrorism, and the mission in Afghanistan would continue.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19, 2008 – Ten French soldiers were killed in Afghanistan when their patrol was attacked by Taliban fighters in Kabul province during fighting that spanned from late yesterday until early today, U.S. officials said. Twenty-one other French troops were wounded in the engagement, which reportedly involved up to 100 insurgents, according to a NATO news release. Afghan security forces were with the French soldiers when enemy fighters attacked. “As I understand it, it was a complex attack involving multiple weapons systems, small arms, mortars, rockets, and [it] lasted for several hours,” senior Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters...

Ten French soldiers have been killed in fighting with the Taleban east of the Afghan capital, Kabul, Afghan and French sources say. The deaths come amid heavy fighting near Kabul after Nato said one of its patrols was ambushed.

KABUL (AFP) - Ten French soldiers were killed in battles with the Taliban near the Afghan capital, a French presidency source said Tuesday, as troops thwarted a second attack on a key US military base in as many days. Military officials in Kabul said the fierce clashes started with an attack Monday on an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) patrol in Sarobi district, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the capital Kabul. The French source, who requested anonymity, said the soldiers were killed following a "Taliban ambush". Most of the 3,000 French troops participating in the 40-nation ISAF are...

Kuwait has activated its Emergency War Plan after an armada of US naval battle groups headed for the Persian Gulf, Middle East Times reports. The report comes after DEBKAfiles claimed on Monday that the USS Theodore Roosevelt, the USS Ronald Reagan, and the USS Iwo Jima are sailing toward the Persian Gulf to reinforce the US strike forces in the region. The US naval force is accompanied by a British Royal Navy carrier battle group and a French nuclear hunter-killer submarine. The deployment is believed to be the largest naval task force assembled by the United States and its allies...

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Leaders from Europe, the Middle East and North Africa have been attending France's Bastille Day military parade.

CARCASSONNE, France (AFP) — President Nicolas Sarkozy promised swift and severe punishment Monday after a soldier shot and wounded 17 people, including a three-year-old boy and both his parents, at an open day at an army barracks. The sergeant opened up with an assault rifle, firing live rounds instead of blanks into a crowd of hundreds of visitors watching a hostage-taking exercise Sunday at the base near the southwestern city of Carcassonne. A man who witnessed the shooting told AFP that "suddenly, people were falling, we thought it was part of the exercise, and then we saw blood."

France will leave Britain alone in Europe's military "premier league" if President Nicolas Sarkozy's defence reforms go through, a group of senior officers has warned. In an anonymous letter, the officers from across the armed services slammed France's new defence doctrine, outlined by Mr Sarkozy this week, which calls for 54,000 military and civilian defence job cuts in return for investment in intelligence and hi-tech equipment. "We are abandoning European military leadership to the British, when we know their particular relationship with the United States," wrote the group calling itself Surcouf – the name of a legendary French corsair who...

France to rejoin NATO command From correspondents in Paris June 17, 2008 08:36pm Article from: Agence France-Presse PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy today confirmed that France will soon rejoin NATO's military command that it left in 1966 but said its nuclear forces would remain under strict national control. "We can renew our relations with NATO without fearing for our independence and without the risk of being unwillingly dragged into a war," said Mr Sarkozy in an address on his new defence strategy.

Most of France's tanks, helicopters and jet fighters are unusable and its defence apparatus is on the verge of "falling apart", it has emerged. France's military has been given a bleak prognosis according to confidential defence documents leaked to the French press, less than half of France's Leclerc tanks – 142 out of 346 – are operational and even these regularly break down. Less than half of its Puma helicopters, 37 per cent of its Lynx choppers and 33 per cent of its Super Frelon models – built 40 years ago – are in a fit state to fly, according...

French army falling apart, documents show By Henry Samuel in Paris Last Updated: 10:50PM BST 06/06/2008 Most of France's tanks, helicopters and jet fighters are unusable and its defence apparatus is on the verge of "falling apart", it has emerged. France's military has been given a bleak prognosis According to confidential defence documents leaked to the French press, less than half of France's Leclerc tanks – 142 out of 346 – are operational and even these regularly break down. Less than half of its Puma helicopters, 37 per cent of its Lynx choppers and 33 per cent of its Super...

In the past few months, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced the first French military base in the Middle East, christened his country's costliest nuclear submarine and advocated returning troops to NATO command. Sarkozy's efforts to project the image of a militarily powerful France reasserting itself on the global security stage mask a behind-the-scenes struggle over withering defense budgets that threaten to reduce combat-ready forces by as much as 40 percent, sideline major new weapons programs and eliminate bases in Africa. Philippe Moreau Defarges, an analyst at the French Institute of International Relations, described Sarkozy's public pronouncements as "mostly an...

Two hundred years after the battle of Trafalgar, the navy could end up sharing the pride of its fleet with the French. Driven by spiralling budgets, the two navies began talks last week aimed at sharing their aircraft carriers. The government is expected to give the go-ahead for the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers this week, part of a joint Anglo-French project to build a total of three. The French, who currently have only one carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, are questioning whether they can afford a replacement and are keen to explore closer co-operation with Britain instead. “We...

Six Somali men involved in capturing a French yacht and holding its 30 crew hostage have said they were part of a maritime militia group with a written code of conduct... The men were captured in the Somali desert by French troops on Friday after holding the yacht and its crew off Somalia for a week and fleeing with part of the ransom, which was recovered. They were flown to France this week to face trial. The yacht's captain told investigators the ransom paid was $2 million (1 million pounds). But the half-dozen men are just part of a larger...

SOMALIA: 6 PIRATES ARRESTED AFTER THE SEIZURE OF "PONANT" (AGI) - Paris, 11 April. - Some of the pirates who took part in the seizure of the French yacht "Ponant" off Somalia were arrested soon after the freeing of 30 members of the crew who had been taken hostage. This statement was released by the General Jean-Louis Goergelin of the French armed forces. The arrest of six pirates took place one hour after the release of the hostages, once the thirty members of the crew were landed. The six pirates were held aboard a French ship.

PARIS (Reuters) - French commandos seized six pirates in Somalia on Friday during a daring helicopter raid launched shortly after the bandits had released the 30-strong crew of a luxury yacht hijacked last week. French officials said the owners of the yacht paid a ransom to obtain the freedom of the crew and as soon as it was clear that they were all safe, the commandos went into action aboard helicopters to track down the pirates. A district commissioner in Somalia told Reuters that five local people had died in the attack, but the French military denied killing anyone in...

KABUL (AFP) — More than 2,000 US marines recently deployed in Afghanistan to support a NATO-led military campaign against Islamic rebels have began operations in the country's restive south, the unit said Thursday. The 2,300-strong US Marine Expeditionary Unit was part of Washington's recent contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) efforts to quell a resurgent Taliban insurgency. "The last of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit's Marines and Sailors are arriving and the unit is beginning operations after weeks of flowing personnel and equipment here," the unit said in a statement. "The Marines have begun their operations in...

PARIS — Elite French troops were headed to East Africa to bolster efforts to free captives of a yacht held by pirates off Somalia, a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said today. A team of the GIGN, a commando force that conducts anti-terrorist and hostage rescue operations, was being sent to Djibouti to "reinforce" negotiation teams in place, spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said in an online briefing. Pirates seized the yacht, called Le Ponant, in the Gulf of Aden on Friday. It was carrying 30 crew members, including 22 French citizens, but no passengers. French officials made contact with the pirates overnight....

The Le Ponant pleasure yacht was seized Friday in international waters opposite Somalia without passengers on route from the Seychelles to Aden Port and the Mediterranean after its first pleasure trip of the summer season in the Indian Ocean. The 32-man crew was taken hostage. Our shipping correspondent reports that the French Le Commandant Rouen warship was diverted from NATO’s Afghanistan operation to join the Yemeni coast guard in the hunt for and rescue of the captured craft. The Le Ponant caters to 64 high-profile luxury tourists, one of three owned by Le Compagnie Des Iles du Ponant, a...

France has agreed to deploy a battalion of new troops to Afghanistan, a NATO spokesperson announced Wednesday. The Prime Minister's Office confirmed with CTV News that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has offered a battalion of soldiers -- normally around 700-800 troops -- to be deployed to the eastern region of Afghanistan. The announcement comes from just before the opening of a NATO leaders summit in Bucharest, Romania. "And the Americans, we are told by the PMO, have agreed to boost their resources as well," reported CTV's Graham Richardson in Bucharest. The U.S. troops, expected to number 1,000, are expected to...

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he will send more troops to Afghanistan to support Nato's mission. Mr Sarkozy, who is on a state visit to Britain, said he would make the offer at next week's Nato summit in the Romanian capital, Bucharest. Nato leaders have frequently called on member countries to contribute more soldiers to the mission in Afghanistan. The Nato-led International Security and Assistance Force (Isaf) currently has over 43,000 personnel in Afghanistan. In a speech to the British parliament in London, Mr Sarkozy said defeat to Taleban insurgents was not an option. "In Afghanistan something essential is...

LONDON (AFP) - President Nicolas Sarkozy will tell British Prime Minister Gordon Brown during a state visit next week that he plans to send an extra 1,000 French soldiers to Afghanistan, the Times reported Saturday. One anonymous senior minister told the paper that Britain's Ministry of Defence is working on the assumption that Sarkozy will reveal a deployment of "slightly more than 1,000 troops to the eastern region" to fight the Taliban. Sarkozy wants to underline his commitment to NATO during the visit but a formal announcement may not be made until a NATO summit in Bucharest next month, the...

'France's last surviving veteran of World War One, Lazare Ponticelli, has died at the age of 110. President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death on Wednesday, paying tribute to the last "poilu", as French WWI veterans were known. "Today, I express the nation's deep emotion and infinite sadness," he said. Mr Ponticelli, originally Italian, had lied about his age in order to join the French Foreign Legion in August 1914, aged 16, Mr Sarkozy said. There are a handful of surviving WWI veterans from other countries, including British pilot Henry Allingham and Austro-Hungarian artillery man Franz Kunstler. France's oldest surviving WWI...

French peacekeepers carried out war games in south Lebanon on Tuesday in what appeared to be a an orientation with the terrain abutting Israel. The state-run National News Agency (NNA) said a unit of the French contingent serving with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) backed by Armored Personnel carriers carried out the maneuver in the eastern sector of south Lebanon, better known as the Arqoub region. The French contingent, the report added, carried out similar maneuvers last week in the central sector of the southern province abutting Israel. UNIFIL and troops of the Lebanese army patrol a demilitarized...

France to send more troops to Afghanistan: report Updated Tue. Feb. 26 2008 5:31 PM ET CTV.ca News Staff France may be sending hundreds of ground troops to eastern Afghanistan to help NATO-led forces in the battle against Taliban insurgents, a French newspaper is reporting. The move comes as Canada has been appealing its NATO allies for troop reinforcements in the more dangerous southern region of Afghanistan. The Le Monde report said the French move is part of a new Afghan policy being worked out by President Nicholas Sarkozy. France has just under 2,000 troops stationed in Afghanistan, but most...

Earlier this month, I wrote that Nicolas Sarkozy might consider showing some leadership in Europe by bolstering France's combat participation in Afghanistan. Le Monde reported earlier today that Sarkozy has all but committed the troops to the front lines: France may send hundreds of ground troops to east Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting al Qaeda-backed insurgents, Le Monde newspaper reported on Tuesday. It said the move would be part of a new Afghan policy being worked out by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his advisers. France has about 1,900 soldiers under NATO's Afghan command, most of them based in relatively...

MINA SALMAN PIER, Bahrain, Feb. 25, 2008 – Command of a multinational task force that conducts maritime security operations in the Gulf of Aden, Gulf of Oman, Arabian Sea, Red Sea and the Indian Ocean changed hands today aboard Pakistan Naval Ship Tippu Sultan. Rear Adm. Jean L. Kerignard of the French navy relieved Pakistani Commodore Khan Hasham Bin Saddique as commander of Combined Task Force 150. The task force, established toward the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, is made up of warships from numerous coalition nations, including France, Germany, Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States. U.S. Navy...

They had big black beards, big warm smiles. They had a dozen young Afghan army trainees in tow, each with a grin to match. They didn't even have flak jackets, let alone a speck of armour on the two brown pickup trucks that kept their show on the road. They were French special forces, in an especially dodgy part of Afghanistan, where the French supposedly don't go. And they'd been there a while. It was late February 2006 – nearly two years ago now – but this close encounter came vividly to mind yesterday when talk of a possible French...

February 9, 2008 Nicolas Sarkozy offers French troops to join Canadians in fighting the Taleban in Kandahar Michael Evans, Defence Editor President Sarkozy rode to the rescue of beleaguered Nato forces in southern Afghanistan yesterday when he offered to deploy French troops alongside Canadians in Kandahar. The French leader has been the most forthcoming of Nato leaders in answering the urgent call to help the troops fighting Taleban insurgents. After Canada’s repeated warnings that it would pull its 2,500 troops out of Kandahar if no other alliance member came to support them, France has been the only country to hint...

France given green light to intervene in Chad By Sebastien Berger in Addis Ababa Last Updated: 2:04am GMT 05/02/2008 The United Nations appeared to give the green light to France last night to intervene militarily to defend the president of Chad from rebels attempting to oust him. France, the former colonial power, has around 1,500 troops in Chad. French soldiers helps foreign residents to evacuate in the Chadian capital of N'Djamena In a carefully worded statement, the UN Security Council called upon member states "to provide support in conformity with the United Nations charter as requested by the government of...

PARIS - World War I veteran Louis de Cazenave died Sunday at age 110, his son said, leaving just one known French survivor of the 1914-1918 conflict. De Cazenave, who took part in the Battle of the Somme, died in his home in Brioude in central France, said his son, also named Louis de Cazenave. "He died at his house, in his sleep, without suffering," the son said by telephone. He said his father was to be buried Tuesday in Brioude. The last known French veteran of World War I — known as "poilus," meaning hairy or tough — is...

<p>In a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Saturday, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said France might increase its troop presence in the country to help defeat the Taliban-led insurgency.</p> <p>“There is a war going on here — a war against terrorism, against fanaticism, that we cannot and will not lose,” he told reporters who accompanied him on the trip.</p>

ABIDJAN, Dec 6 (Reuters) - European Union peacekeepers should start deploying in eastern Chad late this month or early next year but the force is lacking some key equipment, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said on Thursday. An EU force of up to 3,700 soldiers, around half of them French, is due to deploy to the border region with Sudan's Darfur on a U.N. mission to protect several hundred thousand refugees and the aid workers caring for them. But some EU countries have so far refused to make up a shortfall in vital resources, meaning the launch of the mission,...

Rebels in Chad have said they are at war with the French-led European Union peacekeeping force which is due to be deployed in the coming weeks. The rebels accused French military planes of flying over their positions and passing intelligence to the government during this week's fighting. France, the former colonial power, retains a military base in Chad. The EU force is to be sent to the area near the border with Sudan's Darfur, to protect refugees and aid workers. Chad says that Sudan is behind this week's attacks, because it did not want any western forces on its border....

France fills in F-15's role in Afghanistan after crash www.chinaview.cn 2007-11-07 WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- With U.S. F-15 fighters ordered to stand by in Afghanistan, French fighters are providing close-air support for U.S. troops and their allies there, the Military Times reported Wednesday. Since a Nov. 2 crash of a F-15C Eagle in Missouri, the U.S. AirForce has restricted flights of F-15Es and F-15Cs to "mission-critical" sorties only. In Afghanistan, where F-15Es take off from Bagram Air Base, the restriction means that F-15Es sit on combat alert status but are not assigned to pre-planned or on-call missions. In the...

A former French Army paratrooper is in the process of planning a le Grand Saut or "Super Jump" in an attempt at breaking several parachute records... as well as the sound barrier. Michel Fournier, 63, is hoping to break records for the highest ever parachute jump, the longest sky dive, and the highest altitude achieved by a person in a balloon during his attempt to be the first person to break the sound barrier in free-fall, according to the UK Daily Mail. (The current record holder, Air Force Capt. Joseph Kittinger, "only" reached 614 mph -- about Mach .90 --...

"How can we help you in Iraq ?". This very amicable question, asked to State Department boss Condi Rice by Bernard Kouchner, speaks volumes about the new course taken by the Franco-American relationship. The "road map" charting this new course has been given by Nicolas Sarkozy to Jean-David Levitte, his special assistant for Foreign affairs, and to Bernard Kouchner. Both men have been instructed to strengthen the partnership with the United States in every possible respect, and to build as friendly a rapport with the Bush administration as possible. To put it simply, the goal was to break completely free...

July 6, 2007 -- The top French commander in Afghanistan says NATO could rout the Taliban but has held off using full force in order to spare civilians. General Pierre-Richard Kohn said if NATO applied "blind force," it would "defeat the Taliban quickly." But he said the alliance, under criticism for civilians recently killed in its anti-Taliban operations, is not using cluster bombs or weapons that endanger civilians. Kohn accused Taliban insurgents of "barbaric methods," including using civilians as human shields. ISAF and the separate US-led coalition in Afghanistan have come under heavy criticism in past weeks after dozens of...

It would be a miracle if the French cooperated with the US to save the situation in the Middle East. Here's how it would unfold. 1. Lebanon asks for French help. 2. France assembles a coalition to pacify Lebanon 3. US joins French coalition 4. France invades and cleans out Bekaa Valley 5. Syria provides a cause for war 6. France invades Syria from the South 7. US invades Syria from Iraq 8. Game over

A French ship docked in Beirut Saturday carrying 200 troops and some 100 military vehicles bound for the U.N. peacekeeping force monitoring the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas. Their arrival marked the first major French deployment of soldiers to Lebanon since French President Jacques Chirac announced last month that France would increase its contribution to the U.N. force to 2,000 troops. The amphibious ship La Foudre arrived around 8:30 a.m. and soldiers began filing out shortly afterward. They will stay in Beirut until the arrival of more soldiers next week, when they will begin deploying to southern Lebanon, French...

A French United Nations vehicle drives past a poster of Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in Tyre, in southern Lebanon, August 26, 2006. French troops have begun arriving in Lebanon to join an expanded U.N. peacekeeping force tasked with maintaining a truce between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon. REUTERS/Ammar Awad (LEBANON)

PARIS Aug 24, 2006 (AP)— President Jacques Chirac said Thursday that France will send a total of 2,000 soldiers for the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, and an European Union official said it wants to see the troops in place within a week. In a nationally televised address that also was closely followed throughout Europe, Chirac said France will increase its deployment from an already announced 400 troops, and hopes to retain command of the force. He said the United Nations had provided the guarantees France had sought involving the mandate of the force. "Two extra battalions will go...