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This week, 3,000 young people are starting France’s new national service programme, a voluntary military scheme that replaces the country’s now-scrapped Universal National Service.
The volunteers have signed up for a 10-month stint, where they will learn discipline, drill, military songs and weapons handling. They will begin their service with five weeks of basic military training before joining a unit in the army, air force or navy.
As well as receiving accommodation, food and clothing, participants will be paid €800 per month.
Members of this first cohort were selected based on their applications and motivation, regardless of whether or not they had a degree. For now, all of the assignments they are given are set to take place in France.
The government’s initial aim is to grow the programme to 10,000 volunteers a year, with a long-term goal of up to 50,000 per year in 2035.
For the armed forces, the aim is to build up a pool of potential recruits who could later join the military or the reserves.
It remains unlikely that the system will act as a steppingstone towards compulsory national service, however.
The French armed forces currently have around 200,000 personnel and do not have the capacity to take in an entire age group, which could be around 700,000 people a year.
France’s strained public finances make this even less likely – the cost of national service is expected to reach around €1 billion by 2030, based on an annual intake of 10,000 young people.
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