France Plans to Return to NATO Military Command, Kouchner Says

Gregory Viscusi Bloomberg 03/11/2009 02:32

Bernard Kouchner

France plans to return to NATO’s command structure to give the country a larger role in planning for new threats, having achieved the goal of European Union defense cooperation, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

“France plans to play its full role in the military structure of NATO,” Kouchner said today at a conference on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Paris. “We have to end this odd situation, where we took part in its operations without being able to plan them.”

France, a founding member of NATO, distanced itself from the alliance in 1966 when President Charles de Gaulle pulled it out of the command structure and obliged NATO to transfer its headquarters from Paris to Brussels. It has become closer to NATO in recent decades, contributing forces to most NATO missions.

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