French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a new military service plan to boost its armed forces in response to the threat posed by Russia.
In an announcement, Mr Macron said volunteers aged 18 and 19 will start serving next year in a 10-month military service programme.
He told French media: “There is a generation ready to rise up for the fatherland. We cannot go back to the time of conscription, but we need mobilisation.
“Our young people will have to participate in at least one commemorative ceremony per year in each school.
“We will encourage students to complete their second-year internships in our armed forces.”
He added that young volunteers will serve in France‘s mainland and overseas territories only, not in the nation’s military operations abroad.
It follows his announcement earlier this year of his intention to provide French youth with a new option to serve voluntarily.
France had ended conscription in 1996 and is not considering reintroducing it.
Mr Macron said the move was driven by the threat posed by Russia following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which he warned put the European continent at “great risk”.
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‘Russia will continue to advance’
Speaking at the Varces military base in the French alps, Mr Macron said: “A new national service is set to be gradually established, starting from next summer.”
He also told radio outlet RTL: “The day that you send a signal of weakness to Russia, which for 10 years has made a strategic choice to become an imperial power again, that’s to say advance wherever we are weak, well, it will continue to advance.”
Mr Macron also announced an investment of €6.5bn (£5.7bn) in extra military spending in the next two years.
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This comes as part of a €64bn (£56bn) spend in annual defence in 2027, the last year of his second term, he added.
This would be double the €32bn (£28million) in annual spending when he became president in 2017.
France currently has around 200,000 active military personnel and more than 40,000 reservists, making it the second largest military in the European Union, behind Poland. It wants to increase the number of reservists to 100,000 by 2030.
