Macron announces a 10-month voluntary military service starting in 2026

French President Emmanuel Macron announced this Thursday the creation of a 10-month voluntary military service starting next summer for young people between 18 and 19 years old who will only serve on missions within the national territory. Initially, three thousand young people will be incorporated into the voluntary military service, which should increase to ten thousand in 2030 and, “depending on the threat”, fifty thousand in 2035, said the head of the French state in a speech at the Varces barracks, in the French Alps. “Youth aspires to freedom and thirsts for commitment,” he affirmed before pointing out that the creation of this “national service” is part of a general movement that is taking place on the Old Continent.

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“At a time when all our European allies are advancing in the face of a threat that weighs on all of us, France cannot remain immobile,” Macron pointed out. And he added: “We need the mobilization of the nation to defend itself, not against this or that enemy, but to be prepared and to be respected.” These new volunteer soldiers “will serve on national territory and only on national territory,” Macron underlined in the face of the controversy generated in recent days by a statement by the Chief of Staff of the Army, Fabien Mandon, about the fact that in the face of the threat from Russia, France had to be prepared to “accept losing its children.” The French president pointed out that it will be the army that will select future recruits from among “the most motivated and those who best meet their needs”. Candidates will express their interest on the occasion of the so-called “mobilization day” to which all young people are summoned. From the total of ten months of military service, the first month will be general training in which they will learn the military basics, how to march, and basic weapons handling. The following nine months will be spent in a military unit where they will share life and activities with the rest of the professional military personnel, with the sole exception that they will not be sent on missions abroad. The president ruled out the return of mandatory military service, which disappeared in France in 1996 because with the end of the Cold War it had ceased to be useful, because “it does not correspond to the needs of our army or the threats”, he explained. However, he left a door open to force an entire class of young people to join the armed forces if the Parliament so decided “in exceptional cases”.