As US President Barack Obama prepared to unveil his much-awaited new Afghanistan strategy later on Tuesday, his administration was calling on allies – including France - to increase their troop presence in Afghanistan.

On Monday, leading French daily Le Monde reported that the US had asked France to boost its contingent of 3,750 troops in Afghanistan by 1,500. French foreign ministry officials have also confirmed that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a telephone call to her French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, late last week.

Declining support for sustained war

Responding to Monday’s news report, French Defence Minister Herve Morin declined to comment on the specific figure from the report but confirmed that "the United States is asking the Europeans for more troops," according to the AFP news service.

But Morin stressed that France is unlikely to send more troops to the war zone. Instead, he maintained France would be concentrating on preparing Afghan security forces for a greater role in anti-insurgency operations.

"If there were to be an additional effort, the only effort that would make sense would be in terms of Afghan army and police training," Morin told the AFP.

"There cannot simply be a military response," he stressed, adding that the allies must also focus on "the construction of Afghan institutions and improving governance."

Reported reconsideration of Sarkozy’s ‘not a single soldier more’

In an interview with French daily Le Figaro in October, Sarkozy asserted that France would send "not a single soldier more" to Afghanistan.

But on Tuesday the paper quoted an unnamed senior French official as saying French President Nicolas Sarkozy could reconsider an earlier decision not to increase French troop presence in Afghanistan.

"Obama's announcement will not be followed by a mechanical augmentation of French troops in Afghanistan," the source is quoted saying, adding that "the American decision must be followed by precise commitment from Afghan President Hamid Karzai in terms of boosting recruitment in the Afghan National Army and police force.”

Doubled commitment

On Monday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the UK would boost its regular troops in Afghanistan by 500 to a total 9,500 by the end of the year.

In his speech later on Tuesday, Obama is expected to say he will send an extra 30,000 soldiers in the coming months in addition to the 21,000 sent in March this year. It means Obama will have doubled his country's commitment in Afghanistan since he took office in January.

The new Afghan strategy, which will be announced in a live broadcast from the West Point military academy at 2am Paris time (GMT+1) on Wednesday. According to military experts, having an additional 30,000 US troops in Afghanistan is expected to cost between 20 and 40 billion dollars.

Ahead of the broadcast, Obama told US military commanders he had settled on a plan and given the orders to carry it out, the White House said.

"The commander-in-chief delivered the orders," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who added that Obama would offer a timeframe for reducing troop numbers in a war which is now in its ninth year.

"Our time there will be limited," he said. "We're not going to be there in another eight or nine years."