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Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Paris proposes to slash armed forces by a fifth

France is to reduce its armed forces by almost a fifth and close scores of bases under a defence overhaul that will increase spending on spy satellites, cruise missiles and transport.

Long-awaited defence legislative proposals - to be launched today by Nicolas Sarkozy, the president - will aim to modernise Europe's second most powerful military, creating slimmer but more deployable forces as part of a 15-year national security strategy that stretches beyond conventional territorial defence to deal with terrorism, missile strikes and natural disasters.

France will reduce its army to 88,000 deployable troops - roughly akin to British land forces - but will increase spending on technology and intelligence. In total some 54,000 jobs across all services are due to go.

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