President Emmanuel Macron said he will announce a new military service aimed at boosting French army numbers later this week.
Details are scant, but according to French media the scheme would be voluntary, remunerated and last 10 months.
In an interview with local media he sought to reassure French people that the plan did not mean young people would be sent to fight in Ukraine.
“We really need to, right now, dispel any misconception that we’re going to send our young people to Ukraine,” he said. “That’s not at all what this is about.”
However, Macron stated the new framework was meant to address the “desire for service” among the youth – and to face the “hybrid confrontation” waged by Russia.
“If we French want to protect ourselves… we must show that we are not weak in the face of one power that threatens us the most.”
“It is very important that as many of our fellow citizens as possible understand what our armed forces are and how they work,” Macron added.
No official details on the new military service have yet been shared, though it is expected Macron will elaborate on the proposal during a visit to an army base on Thursday.
French media is reporting that the revamped voluntary military service could last 10 months. Volunteers will be paid between €900 (£790) and €1000 (£880) per month, according to La Tribune Dimanche.
Conscription in France was scrapped in 1996. The current iteration of the national service, the Service national universel (SNU), only includes two weeks of training followed by another two weeks of community work. It was introduced in 2019 but never gained much traction.
Raphaël Glucksmann of the centre-left Place Publique party said he was in favour of the proposal but suggested it should go further and be a universal and compulsory service – “not necessarily military” – which could create “cohesion”.
The National Rally (RN)’s Sébastien Chenu said he supported the idea, although he insisted it should start with a “mandatory three-month military service for boys and girls” which could then be extended further.
Last week France’s army chief-of-staff Gen Fabien Mandon sparked outrage when he told a congress of mayors that France’s biggest weakness was the lack of a will to fight and warned the country risked “losing its children” in a potential war with Russia.
Macron sounded the alarm over what he called a “turning point in history” earlier this year.
In March, against the backdrop of the start of Donald Trump’s second term in office and Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, he gave a sombre address to the nation in which he said that France and Europe needed to be ready if the US was no longer by their side.
“We have to be united and determined to protect ourselves,” Macron said at the time.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, several European countries have brought back some form of military service.
From next year Germany will mandate all 18-year-old men to fill out a questionnaire on their ability to serve, with the view of dramatically boosting troop numbers.
Latvia and Sweden also recently restarted military service and Lithuania brought it back after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
