Speculations had been running wild since France’s new security strategy, called the “white paper”, was published in June. At Thursday’s press conference, French Prime Minister Francois Fillon revealed the extent of the damage.

The government expects to lay off 54,000 people – 20% of the current military – and will shut down 83 units based in France starting in 2009. The most affected are those based in the northeast near the German border. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, their posts are no longer strategic.

In the towns that will be affected by the cuts, local governments voiced their affinity for the troops and their worries about the local economy.  But they are not the only ones attached to the soldiers.

According to an annual poll published by the Ministry of Defence on July, 22, nearly 9 out of ten people surveyed by BVA have a good image of the French army, the highest approval rating since March 2000.

“The French know that the army is there when we need it,” assures former air force general Jean-Vincent Brisset. Currently a researcher at the Institute of International Relations and Strategy (IRIS), he spoke about the poll’s results, and the latest cutbacks in the French military, on FRANCE 24.

What do you think about France’s new military plans presented this morning by the Prime Minister?

As a former commander of the base in Brétigny-sur-Orge, the announcement of its closing today fills me with a certain sadness. It seems wasteful, all this money spent on something that will not last. This reform is only the latest in a long list of reforms but it is more extreme than the others. The first cuts took place in 1958-59 and the manpower has been cut 3-fold since the Algerian War.

The French have a good image of the army, but the reform seems to have left the military bitter.

Since mandatory military service ended, the resentment and the image of the alcoholic warrant officer have disappeared. The French (…) know that the army is there when they need it. 

(…) I am under the impression that there is more bitterness in the former servicemen than in the active duty military. If education or a different ministry had suffered a tenth of the reforms that have been imposed on the army over the years – a 20% drop in available manpower and a loss of half the equipment – there would already be red flag and blood on the walls. Amongst the soldiers, there is a sadness, a feeling of nostalgia.

The majority of French uphold the reforms introduced by the Ministry of Defence white paper. But within the army some are critical of the importance given to information over improved equipment.  Won’t this result in an army that is better-informed army yet less capable to act?

If one can set-off a bomb at enemy headquarters, isn’t that better than sending a hundred infantry soldiers to the frontline? I have only one criticism against the “white paper”. It is necessary to keep people on the ground to exert a constraint like in Afghanistan, even those are not entire battalions.