Editing French Armed Forces (section)

====2008====
On 31 July 2007, President [[Nicolas Sarkozy]] ordered M. Jean-Claude Mallet, a member of the Council of State, to head up a thirty-five member commission charged with a wide-ranging review of French defence. The commission issued its [[White Paper]] in early 2008.<ref>Official Presidential Website, [http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/anglais/speeches_and_documents/2007/white_paper_on_defence_and_national_security_letter_to_m_jean-claude_mallet_member_of_the_conseil_d_etat.79322.html Letter of Engagement to M. Jean-Claude Mallet, 31 July 2007] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080921130731/http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/anglais/speeches_and_documents/2007/white_paper_on_defence_and_national_security_letter_to_m_jean-claude_mallet_member_of_the_conseil_d_etat.79322.html |date=21 September 2008 }}</ref> Acting upon its recommendations, President Sarkozy began making radical changes in French defense policy and structures starting in the summer of 2008. In keeping with post-[[Cold War]] changes in European politics and power structures, the French military's traditional focus on territorial defence will be redirected to meet the challenges of a global threat environment. Under the reorganisation, the identification and destruction of [[terrorist]] networks both in metropolitan France and in [[francophone Africa]] will be the primary task of the French military. Redundant military bases will be closed and new weapons systems projects put on hold to finance the restructuring and global deployment of intervention forces. In a historic change, Sarkozy furthermore has declared that France "will now participate fully in [[NATO]]," four decades after former French president General [[Charles de Gaulle]] withdrew from the alliance's command structure and ordered American troops off French soil.<ref>Jim Hoagland, "France's Whirlwind of Change", Real Clear Politics, 18 June 2008 [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/06/sarkozy_on_the_move.html]</ref>