WORLD
PARIS — France said today it will cut another 24,000 military jobs by 2019 as it attempts to maintain a force ready to deal with global threats at the time when the bill for France’s decades of deficit spending is due.
Uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, France’s war in Mali and the civil war in Syria are among the events shaping France’s new defense outlook that were unforeseen in the last version of its defense strategy five years ago, when it decided to cut another 55,000 jobs.
The government says that France now has 228,000 military personnel.
The effects of the global financial crisis and in particular Europe’s ongoing economic stagnation are also major factors shaping the new defense doctrine, according to the defense ministry’s “White Book on Defense and National Security,” released today.
France has begun withdrawing its 4,000 troops from Mali, where it intervened in January to combat radical Islamists threatening to overrun the capital. It also keeps troops in Chad, Ivory Coast and Djibuti. France spends around 10 percent of its annual budget on defense, or around 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product.
