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France to bring back 'National Service'.


poontang
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It seems that French president Macron is soon to bring back National Service for up to 800,000 young Frenchies a year.

Not proper national service mind, but a month long stint in the military where they can build their 'social cohesion and patriotism'.

Macron claims he wants the French youth to have 'causes to defend and battles to fight in the social, environmental and cultural domains'. Sounds to me like a month of liberal brainwashing. Surely a few weeks at pretty much any university would give the same results without tying up there overstretched military resources? French military chiefs, quite rightly, are not impressed as they battle terrorism threats across the country.

Seeing as we are a pretty divided nation here in the UK at the moment should this be something we could be looking at on these shores? 

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Expecting the armed forces to nanny kids whose parents declined to do the job is a very long way from the work they are trained and (somewhat) equipped for. A definite no vote for me, perhaps influenced by the people I have worked with who had to do national service in their origional countries have never having had a positive thing to say about it.

 

As I understand it the French have a huge problem with youth unemployment which doesnt exist here (underemployment is a seperate debate).

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31 minutes ago, poontang said:

It seems that French president Macron is soon to bring back National Service for up to 800,000 young Frenchies a year.

Not proper national service mind, but a month long stint in the military where they can build their 'social cohesion and patriotism'.

Macron claims he wants the French youth to have 'causes to defend and battles to fight in the social, environmental and cultural domains'. Sounds to me like a month of liberal brainwashing. Surely a few weeks at pretty much any university would give the same results without tying up there overstretched military resources? French military chiefs, quite rightly, are not impressed as they battle terrorism threats across the country.

Seeing as we are a pretty divided nation here in the UK at the moment should this be something we could be looking at on these shores? 

Think that they used to have a choice in the Army or overseas voluntary service

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8 minutes ago, mudpatten said:

Gauche, droit, gauche, droit. `alt.

Shoulder les arms.

Place ze rifle carefully on ze ground.

Volte face.

....and run away!! as French armies have done for millenia!

Alternativement - Find a German to surrender to. Merde. Easy!

 

 

 

Not true, the french fought bravely in two world wars. 

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11 minutes ago, mudpatten said:

True for the first. And true for the second, until they surrendered.

Along with the British army at Dunkirk, if it was not for the English channel the German army would of marched all the way to London. As for conscription it will not happen in the UK, a relief for the regular army i would think. 

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15 minutes ago, ordnance said:

Along with the British army at Dunkirk, if it was not for the English channel the German army would of marched all the way to London. As for conscription it will not happen in the UK, a relief for the regular army i would think. 

What the British did at Dunkirk was retreat not surrender, the two are quite different. Also the evacuation of Dunkirk was nothing short of a miracle. 

We went to fight a WW1 style war and the Germans had other ideas, but a few very brave men volunteered to hold the Germans back while others evacuated, these men fought to the last bullet and many were executed. NOT what I would call surrendering!

 

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After Dunkirk there were thousands of French soldiers in Britain, the vast majority of whom elected to return to a defeated and subjugated France, never to fire another shot in anger.

In a post war wash up of such things many questions were asked about why the Germans did not invade Britain when they had the chance. One of the reasons that may have influenced it was that the Wermacht rolled through France with virtually no hindrance by the French populace. After Dunkirk the Germans realised that a great many of the small boats in the troop evacuation were civillians there of their own volition. The Germans had serious concerns that an invaded Britain would be a very different kettle of fish. Each street corner barricaded, houses turned into strongpoints, and a population prepared to fight - unlike the Frogs.

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42 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

What the British did at Dunkirk was retreat not surrender, the two are quite different. Also the evacuation of Dunkirk was nothing short of a miracle. 

We went to fight a WW1 style war and the Germans had other ideas, but a few very brave men volunteered to hold the Germans back while others evacuated, these men fought to the last bullet and many were executed. NOT what I would call surrendering!

 

Quote

What the British did at Dunkirk was retreat not surrender,

Same difference, if they were not evacuated they would have undoubtedly surrendered. They had already abandoned most of their equipment in the retreat. 

29 minutes ago, mudpatten said:

After Dunkirk there were thousands of French soldiers in Britain, the vast majority of whom elected to return to a defeated and subjugated France, never to fire another shot in anger.

In a post war wash up of such things many questions were asked about why the Germans did not invade Britain when they had the chance. One of the reasons that may have influenced it was that the Wermacht rolled through France with virtually no hindrance by the French populace. After Dunkirk the Germans realised that a great many of the small boats in the troop evacuation were civillians there of their own volition. The Germans had serious concerns that an invaded Britain would be a very different kettle of fish. Each street corner barricaded, houses turned into strongpoints, and a population prepared to fight - unlike the Frogs.

You are kidding yourself, it would of taken more than some civilians and Captain Mainwaring to stop them. 

Edited by ordnance
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Don't knock the French Army, their problem in both WW1 and WW2 was too close proximity and too long a border with Germany. If they hadn't held the Germans at Verdun in WW1 with massive losses in all probability we would have been over run. Even at our best we were thin on the ground.

National Service is not all bad, what the French are proposing is more like community service. British National Service in the 50s was more about keeping all the camps and bases around the world manned even though there was little to keep the soldiers occupied

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