France's Barnier Ramps Up Campaign With Military Service Pledge

France's former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who is bidding to become the presidential candidate of the right-wing Republicans, said Tuesday that if elected he would seek to bring back compulsory military service

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Nov, 2021 ) :France's former Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who is bidding to become the presidential candidate of the right-wing Republicans, said Tuesday that if elected he would seek to bring back compulsory military service.

Barnier, who won acclaim for his steady handling of the long negotiations on Britain's divorce from the EU, is one of five politicians competing to represent the Republicans in April's election.

The pro-European moderate has caused surprise by lurching to the right on immigration and law and order in campaigning for the Republicans congress that will choose its candidate on December 4.

Barnier told France Info radio that if he was elected president parliament he would debate the creation of a six-month "military, security and civil protection service" for all men and women aged between 18 and 21.

Barnier said such a service would help foster "a feeling of belonging to the nation" and allow young people from different socio-economic backgrounds to mix.

"I see the risk for our country of patriotic sentiment disintegrating and eventually disappearing," Barnier said.

Barnier was given only a slim chance of making it onto the ballot when he announced his presidential bid in August, with the former EU commissioner seen as too technocratic for the cut and thrust of today's election campaigns.

But as the weeks passed, the 70-year-old billed by supporters as an unflappable "French Joe Biden" emerged as a frontrunner for the Republicans nomination despite polls showing he would not make it past the first round of the presidential election.

The polls currently show Macron beating a far-right candidate in the election run-off.

Barnier's proposal to bring back military service marks his latest attempt to woo conservative voters, who have also shifted to the right on issues including immigration and islam.

France's last conscripts were demobilised in 2001 after former president Jacques Chirac ended nearly a century of military service.

Bringing back a "universal national service" was a key pledge of Macron, who also billed it as a way to develop social cohesion.

But the idea raised hackles in the army, prompting Macron to opt for a short civic service for teenagers that was launched in 2019 on a trial basis.

Barnier's manifesto also includes a moratorium on immigration and a surprise call for France to take back its judicial independence from European courts, over which he was accusing of turning on the EU.

Barnier and his four rivals, including the head of the northern Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand and Paris region chief Valerie Pecresse, will hold a fourth and final tv debate on November 30.

Analysts have said that the outcome of the congress remains wide open with the other two contenders -- lawmaker Eric Ciotti and leading doctor Philippe Juvin -- also not totally out of contention.