Sarkozy confirms increased deployment to Afghanistan
French president Nicolas Sarkozy has confirmed that France will send battalion and special forces to Afghanistan to join the Nato mission there.
He has also told the Nato summit in Bucharest, Romania, that he will decide next year on France’s return to the alliance’s integrated military command more than four decades since General Charles de Gaulle pulled out.
Both moves are a sign of Sarkozy’s policy of drawing closer to the US-led Nato alliance, although his speech to the meeting today also stressed France’s desire to build up the defence role of the European Union.
