France has very sensibly paid itself a peace dividend. It is to cut its defence forces by 38 regiments down to about 140 regiments. It will also close some air bases, military hospitals and military training establishments and it will end conscription. Units now stationed in Germany will be subjected to especially heavy cuts.
It has required some political courage for the French Government to make the cuts, because, as in many countries, the military has deliberately stationed itself and its suppliers in regions, so that they represent a large part of a region’s economy. That usually results in a huge outcry at any suggestion of cuts and a concentrated political fall-out which often results in the governments backing off.
However, the French Minister for Defence, Charles Millon, has responded by turning swords into ploughshares. He has promised extra funding to regions that are especially affected. Further he has spread cuts where possible to limit the political damage.
The reduced spending makes sense in the present European climate. Having a significant number of French troops in Germany is a hang-over from World War II and no longer appropriate in the context of the nations’ role in the European Union. Further, now the Berlin Wall has come down, France does not face a huge threat from Soviet Bloc ground forces as it had done from the 1950s to 1989.
Since World War II, France has insisted on a comparatively large military, presumably on historic grounds. It is welcome to see that historic fears can be overcome and that a example can be set to show there is an economic dividend to peace.
More cynically, of course, the cuts can be seen as part of general cuts in public spending. None the less they would not have been possible politically if the groundwork had not been done in the creation of the European Union or if the Soviet threat were still there.