Введение
Объединенные вооруженные силы Франции
Французская армия
Французский флот
Французские воздушно-космические силы
Национальная жандармерия
| штаб-квартира = Hexagone Balard, Париж
| веб-сайт =
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
| главнокомандующий = Президент Эммануэль Макрон
| должность главнокомандующего = Верховный главнокомандующий Вооруженными силами
| главный министр =
| должность главного министра =
| министр = Себастьен Лекорну
| должность министра = Министр Вооруженных сил
| начальник штаба = Général d'armée Тьерри Буркхард
| должность начальника штаба = Начальник Генерального штаба обороны
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
| возраст = 17,5
| призыв = Отсутствует
| данные о людских ресурсах =
| возраст призыва = 16–50
| доступно =
| доступно (ж) =
| пригодны =
| пригодны (ж) =
| призывники =
| призывники (ж) =
| действующий состав = 198 241 (без учета Национальной жандармерии)
| резерв = 25 785
| рейтинг =
| развернуты =
| финансирование = 60 млрд долларов США (8-е место)
| процент от ВВП = 1,9%
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
| отечественные поставщики =
| иностранные поставщики =
| импорт = (2014–2022)
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
| история = Военная история Франции Каталог войн Франции Войны с участием Франции Сражения с участием Франции
| звания = Армейские звания Морские звания Звания военно-воздушных и космических сил
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
Вооруженные силы Франции — военные силы Франции. Они состоят из четырех видов войск: армии, флота, военно-воздушных и космических сил и национальной жандармерии. Национальная гвардия выполняет функции военного резерва Вооруженных сил Франции. В соответствии с конституцией Франции, президент Франции является Верховным главнокомандующим французскими вооруженными силами. Франция располагает восьмым по величине военным бюджетом в мире и вторым по величине в Европейском союзе (ЕС). Она также обладает крупнейшей армией по численности в ЕС. Согласно отчету Credit Suisse за 2015 год, Вооруженные силы Франции были признаны шестой по мощности армией в мире.
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
История
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
Военная история Франции охватывает огромную панораму конфликтов и борьбы, продолжавшихся более 2000 лет на территориях, включающих современную Францию, большую Европу и заморские французские владения. По словам британского историка Ниала Фергюсона, французы участвовали в 50 из 125 крупных европейских войн, произошедших с 1495 года, что больше, чем любая другая европейская страна. За ними следуют австрийцы, участвовавшие в 47 войнах, испанцы – в 44, а англичане (а затем британцы) – в 43. Кроме того, из всех задокументированных конфликтов, произошедших с 387 года до н.э., Франция участвовала в 168 из них, выиграв 109, проиграв 49 и сыграв вничью 10. Галло-римский конфликт доминировал с 60 по 50 год до н.э., когда римляне одержали победу в завоевании Галлии Юлием Цезарем. После падения Римской империи германское племя, известное как франки, взяло под контроль Галлию, победив конкурирующие племена. «Земля Франкии», от которой происходит название Франции, достигла пика расширения при королях Хлодвиге I и Карле Великом. В Средние века соперничество с Англией и Священной Римской империей привело к крупным конфликтам, таким как нормандское завоевание и Столетняя война. С все более централизованной монархией, первой постоянной армией со времен римлян и использованием артиллерии Франция изгнала англичан со своей территории и вышла из Средневековья как самая могущественная нация в Европе, лишь чтобы потерять этот статус в пользу Испании после поражения в Итальянских войнах. Религиозные войны ослабили Францию в конце XVI века, но крупная победа над Испанией в Тридцатилетней войне вновь сделала Францию самой могущественной нацией на континенте. Параллельно с этим Франция создала свою первую колониальную империю в Азии, Африке и Америке. При Людовике XIV Франция достигла военного превосходства над своими соперниками, но эскалация конфликтов против все более могущественных коалиций врагов сдержала французские амбиции и оставила королевство банкротом в начале XVIII века. Возрождение французских армий обеспечило победы в династических конфликтах против испанской, польской и австрийской корон. В то же время Франция отражала нападения на свои колонии. По мере развития XVIII века глобальная конкуренция с Великобританией привела к Семилетней войне, в которой Франция потеряла свои североамериканские владения. Утешением стало господство в Европе и Американская революционная война, где обширная французская помощь в виде денег и оружия, а также непосредственное участие ее армии и флота привели к независимости Америки. Внутренние политические потрясения в конечном итоге привели к 23 годам почти непрерывных конфликтов во время Французских революционных войн и Наполеоновских войн. Франция достигла зенита своей власти в этот период, доминируя над европейским континентом беспрецедентным образом под руководством Наполеона Бонапарта, но к 1815 году она была восстановлена в своих довоенных границах. Остаток XIX века ознаменовался ростом Второй Французской колониальной империи, а также французскими интервенциями в Бельгию, Испанию и Мексику. Другие крупные войны велись против России в Крыму, Австрии в Италии и Пруссии на территории самой Франции. После поражения во Франко-прусской войне франко-германское соперничество вновь вспыхнуло в Первой мировой войне. На этот раз Франция и ее союзники одержали победу. Социальные, политические и экономические потрясения после конфликта привели ко Второй мировой войне, в которой союзники потерпели поражение в Битве за Францию, и французское правительство капитулировало и было заменено авторитарным режимом. Союзники, включая правительство в изгнании, Свободные французские силы и позже освобожденную Францию, в конечном итоге одержали победу над странами Оси. В результате Франция получила оккупационную зону в Германии и постоянное место в Совете Безопасности Организации Объединенных Наций. Необходимость избежать третьего франко-германского конфликта в масштабах двух мировых войн проложила путь к европейской интеграции, начавшейся в 1950-х годах. Франция стала ядерной державой, проведя первое испытание атомной бомбы в Алжире в 1960 году. С 1990-х годов ее военные действия чаще всего наблюдаются в сотрудничестве с НАТО и ее европейскими партнерами.
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
Военная доктрина Франции сегодня основана на концепциях национальной независимости, ядерного сдерживания (см. Force de dissuasion) и военной самодостаточности. Франция является членом-основателем НАТО и активно сотрудничает со своими союзниками для адаптации НАТО – как внутри, так и снаружи – к условиям после окончания холодной войны. В декабре 1995 года Франция объявила о намерении увеличить свое участие в военной ветви НАТО, включая Военный комитет (Франция вышла из военных органов НАТО в 1966 году, оставаясь при этом полноправным участником политических советов Организации). Франция остается твердым сторонником Организации по безопасности и сотрудничеству в Европе и других совместных усилий. Париж был местом проведения саммита НАТО-Россия в мае 1997 года, на котором было подписано Основополагающее соглашение об отношениях, сотрудничестве и безопасности. Помимо НАТО, Франция активно и широко участвовала как в коалиционных, так и в односторонних миротворческих операциях в Африке, на Ближнем Востоке и на Балканах, часто играя ведущую роль в этих операциях. Франция провела крупную реструктуризацию для создания профессиональной армии, которая будет меньше, более быстро развертываемой и лучше приспособленной для операций за пределами континентальной Франции. Ключевые элементы реструктуризации включают: сокращение численности персонала, баз и штабов, а также рационализацию оборудования и оборонной промышленности. После окончания холодной войны Франция придает большое значение контролю над вооружениями и нераспространению. Французские ядерные испытания на Тихом океане и затопление корабля «Рейнбоу Уорриор» испортили отношения Франции с ее союзниками, государствами Тихоокеанского региона (в частности, с Новой Зеландией) и общественным мнением. Франция согласилась с Договором о нераспространении ядерного оружия в 1992 году и поддержала его бессрочное продление в 1995 году. После проведения спорной финальной серии из шести ядерных...
Combined military forces of France
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
French Army
French Navy
French Air and Space Force
National Gendarmerie
| headquarters = Hexagone Balard, Paris
| website =
| commander in chief = President Emmanuel Macron
| commander in chief title = Chief of the Armed Forces
| chief minister =
| chief minister title =
| minister = Sébastien Lecornu
| minister title = Minister of the Armed Forces
| chief of staff = Général d'armée Thierry Burkhard
| chief of staff title = Chief of the Defence Staff
| age = 17.5
| conscription = None
| manpower data =
| manpower age = 16–50
| available =
| available f =
| fit =
| fit f =
| reaching =
| reaching f =
| active = 198,241 (excl. The National Gendarmerie)
| reserve = 25,785
| ranked =
| deployed =
| amount = US$ 60 billion (ranked 8th)
|percent GDP = 1.9%
| domestic suppliers =
| foreign suppliers =
| imports = (2014–2022)
| history = Military history of FranceWarfare directory of FranceWars involving FranceBattles involving France
| ranks = Army ranksNavy ranksAir and Space Force ranks
The French Armed Forces' are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander in chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military. History
The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas, including modern France, greater Europe, and French territorial possessions overseas. According to British historian Niall Ferguson, the French participated in 50 of the 125 major European wars that have been fought since 1495; more than any other European state. They are followed by the Austrians who fought in 47 of them, the Spanish in 44 and the English (and later British) who were involved in 43. In addition, out of all recorded conflicts which occurred since the year 387 BC, France has fought in 168 of them, won 109, lost 49 and drawn 10. The Gallo Roman conflict predominated from 60 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar. After the decline of the Roman Empire, a Germanic tribe known as the Franks took control of Gaul by defeating competing tribes. The "land of Francia," from which France gets its name, had high points of expansion under kings Clovis I and Charlemagne. In the Middle Ages, rivalries with England and the Holy Roman Empire prompted major conflicts such as the Norman Conquest and the Hundred Years' War. With an increasingly centralized monarchy, the first standing army since Roman times, and the use of artillery, France expelled the English from its territory and came out of the Middle Ages as the most powerful nation in Europe, only to lose that status to Spain following defeat in the Italian Wars. The Wars of Religion crippled France in the late 16th century, but a major victory over Spain in the Thirty Years' War made France the most powerful nation on the continent once more. In parallel, France developed its first colonial empire in Asia, Africa, and in the Americas. Under Louis XIV, France achieved military supremacy over its rivals, but escalating conflicts against increasingly powerful enemy coalitions checked French ambitions and left the kingdom bankrupt at the opening of the 18th century. Resurgent French armies secured victories in dynastic conflicts against the Spanish, Polish, and Austrian crowns. At the same time, France was fending off attacks on its colonies. As the 18th century advanced, global competition with Great Britain led to the Seven Years' War, where France lost its North American holdings. Consolation came in the form of dominance in Europe and the American Revolutionary War, where extensive French aid in the form of money and arms, and the direct participation of its army and navy led to America's independence. Internal political upheaval eventually led to 23 years of nearly continuous conflict in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. France reached the zenith of its power during this period, dominating the European continent in an unprecedented fashion under Napoleon Bonaparte, but by 1815 it had been restored to its pre Revolutionary borders. The rest of the 19th century witnessed the growth of the Second French colonial empire as well as French interventions in Belgium, Spain, and Mexico. Other major wars were fought against Russia in the Crimea, Austria in Italy, and Prussia within France itself. Following defeat in the Franco Prussian War, Franco German rivalry erupted again in the First World War. France and its allies were victorious this time. Social, political, and economic upheaval in the wake of the conflict led to the Second World War, in which the Allies were defeated in the Battle of France and the French government surrendered and was replaced with an authoritarian regime. The Allies, including the government in exile's Free French Forces and later a liberated French nation, eventually emerged victorious over the Axis powers. As a result, France secured an occupation zone in Germany and a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. The imperative of avoiding a third Franco German conflict on the scale of those of two world wars paved the way for European integration starting in the 1950s. France became a nuclear power with its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960. Since the 1990s its military action is most often seen in cooperation with NATO and its European partners. International stance
Today, French military doctrine is based on the concepts of national independence, nuclear deterrence (see Force de dissuasion), and military self sufficiency. France is a charter member of NATO, and has worked actively with its allies to adapt NATO—internally and externally—to the post Cold War environment. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (France withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 whilst remaining full participants in the Organisation's political Councils). France remains a firm supporter of the Organization for Security and Co operation in Europe and other cooperative efforts. Paris hosted the May 1997 NATO Russia Summit which sought the signing of the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security. Outside of NATO, France has actively and heavily participated in both coalition and unilateral peacekeeping efforts in Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans, frequently taking a lead role in these operations. France has undertaken a major restructuring to develop a professional military that will be smaller, more rapidly deployable, and better tailored for operations outside of mainland France. Key elements of the restructuring include: reducing personnel, bases and headquarters, and rationalisation of equipment and the armaments industry. Since the end of the Cold War, France has placed a high priority on arms control and non proliferation. French Nuclear testing in the Pacific, and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior strained French relations with its Allies, South Pacific states (namely New Zealand), and world opinion. France agreed to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty in 1992 and supported its indefinite extension in 1995. After conducting a controversial final series of six nuclear tests on Mururoa in the South Pacific, the French signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996. Since then, France has implemented a moratorium on the production, export, and use of anti personnel landmines and supports negotiations leading toward a universal ban. The French are key players in the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe to the new strategic environment. France remains an active participant in: the major programs to restrict the transfer of technologies that could lead to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction: the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group (for chemical and biological weapons), and the Missile Technology Control Regime. France has also signed and ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. White Papers
2008
On 31 July 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered M. Jean Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty five member commission charged with a wide ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its White Paper in early 2008. Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post Cold War changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of terrorist networks both in metropolitan France and in francophone Africa will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in NATO," four decades after former French president General Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil. 2013
In May 2014, high ranking defence chiefs of the French Armed Forces threatened to resign if the defence budget received further cuts on top of those already announced in the 2013 White Paper. They warned that further cuts would leave the armed forces unable to support operations abroad. Recent operations
There are currently 36,000 French troops deployed in foreign territories—such operations are known as "OPEX" for Opérations Extérieures ("External Operations"). Among other countries, France provides troops for the United Nations force stationed in Haiti following the 2004 Haiti rebellion. France has sent troops, especially special forces, into Afghanistan to help the United States and NATO forces fight the remains of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In Opération Licorne a force of a few thousand French soldiers is stationed in Ivory Coast on a UN peacekeeping mission. These troops were initially sent under the terms of a mutual protection pact between France and the Ivory Coast, but the mission has since evolved into the current UN peacekeeping operation. The French Armed Forces have also played a leading role in the ongoing UN peacekeeping mission along the Lebanon Israel border as part of the cease fire agreement that brought the 2006 Lebanon War to an end. Currently, France has 2,000 army personnel deployed along the border, including infantry, armour, artillery and air defence. There are also naval and air personnel deployed offshore. The French Joint Force and Training Headquarters (État Major Interarmées de Force et d'Entraînement) at Air Base 110 near Creil maintains the ability to command a medium or large scale international operation, and runs exercises In 2011, from 19 March, France participated in the enforcement of a no fly zone over northern Libya, during the Libyan Civil war, in order to prevent forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out air attacks on Anti Gaddafi forces. This operation was known as Opération Harmattan and was part of France's involvement in the conflict in the NATO led coalition, enforcing UN Security Council Resolution 1973. On 11 January 2013 France begun Operation Serval to fight Islamists in Mali and the Sahal Region with African support but without NATO involvement and launched Operation Barkhane to combat terror in African Sahal from 2014 to 2022. Exercises
France participates in several recurring exercises with other nations, including:
CRUZEX, joint aerial combat training exercises in Brazil. Caraibe 2013, every two years in the Caribbean, centering on Martinique and Guadeloupe. Croix du Sud, in New Caledonia every two years with Australia, New Zealand, the United States and other Pacific nations. Varuna, an annual naval exercise with India. NATO Air Defender 2023, the largest deployment exercise in NATO's history. In 2023, Exercise Orion, the largest in decades, is to be held in the Champagne Ardenne region. About 10,000 soldiers are expected to take part, along with the French navy and possibly forces from Belgium, Britain, and the United States. Personnel
The head of the French armed forces is the President of the Republic, in his role as chef des armées. However, the Constitution puts civil and military government forces at the disposal of the gouvernement (the executive cabinet of ministers chaired by the Prime Minister, who are not necessarily of the same political side as the president). The Minister of the Armed Forces oversees the military's funding, procurement and operations. Historically, France relied a great deal on conscription to provide manpower for its military, in addition to a minority of professional career soldiers. Following the Algerian War, the use of non volunteer draftees in foreign operations was ended; if their unit was called up for duty in war zones, draftees were offered the choice between requesting a transfer to another unit or volunteering for the active mission. In 1996, President Jacques Chirac's government announced the end of conscription and in 2001, conscription formally was ended. Young people must still, however, register for possible conscription (should the situation call for it). As of 2017 the French Armed Forces have total manpower of 426,265, and has an active personnel of 368,962 (with the Gendarmerie Nationale). It breaks down as follows (2022):
The French Army; 118,600 personnel. The French Air and Space Force; 43,597 personnel. The French Navy; 36,044 personnel. Tri service DHS, SEO, and DGA; 17,647 personnel in medical, support and administrative roles, and in the acquisition of weapon systems. The reserve element of the French Armed Forces consists of two structures; the Operational Reserve and the Citizens Reserve. As of 2022 the strength of the Operational Reserve is 25,785 personnel. They are used in everyday law enforcement, and also form a coast guard formation under the command of the French Navy. There are however some elements of the Gendarmerie that participate in French external operations, providing specialised law enforcement and supporting roles. Historically the National Guard functioned as the Army's reserve national defense and law enforcement militia. After 145 years since its disbandment, due to the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, the Guard was officially reactivated, this time as a service branch of the Armed Forces, on 12 October 2016. Since 2019 young French citizens can fulfill the mandatory service Service national universel (SNU) within the Armed Forces in the service branch of their choice. Organisation and service branches
Placed under the command of the staffs, the French armed forces include the five service branches, the Army, the National Navy, the Air and Space Force, the National Gendarmerie, and the National Guard, as well as the support services and joint organizations:
French Army (Armée de terre)
Special Forces
Airborne Units (Troupes aéroportées)
Infantry (Infanterie)
Armoured Cavalry (Arme blindée cavalerie)
Artillery (Artillerie)
Foreign Legion (Légion étrangère)
Troupes de Marine
French Army Light Aviation (Aviation légére de l'armée de terre, ALAT)
Engineers (Génie)
Paris Fire Brigade (brigade des sapeurs pompiers de Paris)
Signal Corps (Transmissions)
Transport and logistics (Train)
Matériel (Supply)
Intelligence (Renseignement)
National Navy (Marine nationale)
Parachute Units of the French Navy
Naval Infantry and Naval Commandos (Fusiliers Marins)
Naval Air Arm (Aviation navale)
Submarine Force (Forces sous marines)
Naval Action Force (Force d'action navale)
The Marseille Marine Fire Battalion
In addition, the National Gendarmerie form a Coast Guard force called the Gendarmerie Maritime which is commanded by the French Navy. French Air and Space Force (Armée de l'Air et de l'Espace)
French Space Command
Parachute Units of the French Air and Space Force
Air and space force ground troops (Fusiliers Commandos de l'Air)
Paratroopers/Special forces (Commando parachutiste de l'air'')
Territorial Air Defence
Национальная гвардия (Garde nationale)
Восстановленная в 2016 году, Национальная гвардия является официальной основной военной и полицейской резервной службой Вооруженных сил. Она находится в ведении Министерства вооруженных сил и служит резервным формированием. Кроме того, она усиливает возможности правоохранительных органов в кризисных ситуациях и поддерживает военный персонал при развертывании как во Франции, так и за рубежом.
Reactivated in 2016, the National Guard serves as the official primary military and police reserve service of the Armed Forces. It is placed under the jurisdiction of Ministry of the Armed Forces and serves as a reserve force. It also doubles as a force multiplier for law enforcement personnel during contingencies and to reinforce military personnel whenever being deployed within France and abroad.