Michel Barnier, candidate for the nomination of the Republicans and former chief Brexit negotiator for the European Union, proposed, Tuesday, November 23, on franceinfo, to set up a military service if he is elected president in 2022. “There is a need to recreate the link for the unity of our country”, did he declare. “The idea is to recreate a compulsory 6-month military service that I called the military security and civil protection service”, he explained, recalling that it had been deleted “for good reasons by Jacques Chirac” in 1996.
The service that Michel Barnier offers will be “more flexible”, open to young people, girls and boys, between 18 and 21 years old. It is “allow them to recreate between themselves this social mixing and this republican and national bond” required “to rebuild the feeling of belonging to the nation and to the Republic”, “a little abandoned”, according to nomination contestant LR. “It will be expensive”, he admitted, estimating the cost at “1.5 billion or 2 billion euros”. Michel Barnier, however, promised to “give additional resources to the armies”. “We are not going to do this to the detriment of the armies”, he assured.
>>> Situation in Guadeloupe, return of military service … The “8h30 franceinfo” by Michel Barnier.
Michel Barnier said he wanted to submit this proposal to an evaluation of pre-existing initiatives, to extensive consultation, and to a parliamentary debate. “I want to listen, a presidential campaign is an opportunity to raise all the debates”, he added, deploring that “France we make laws and we consider that they are good forever”.
“We must all ask ourselves the question of how we rebuild this link with the nation and with the Republic”
Michel barnierto franceinfo
The former Brexit negotiator concludes: “We will assess what has been done and we will open the debate with the future majority, with the future opposition, because it will be a pluralist debate and of national interest”.