Free Republic

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...