2,000 French teens start national service

PRESIDENT Emmanuel Macron’s new-look version of national service was launched yesterday as 2,000 teenagers reported to centres across France for a twoweek programme intended to promote national unity.

France abolished compulsory military service in 1996, but bringing back national service was a key campaign pledge by Mr Macron. The updated “universal” national service is mainly civic, but has a military component.

The first group is made up of volunteers, but the initiative will become obligatory for all 16-year-olds.

Soldiers and youth workers will train them on how to respond to a terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

For the next two weeks, the teenagers will rise at 7am and take part in a daily flagraising ceremony, saluting and singing La Marseillaise, the national anthem. They will wear uniforms for ceremonies and fluorescent vests for civil protection exercises.

They will be instructed in national and self-defence, sustainable development and French values. Evening debates will be held on topics such as gender discrimination and racism.

The teenagers can only use mobile phones during one hour of free time daily.

Gabriel Attal, a junior minister for youth and education, said national service would become a “rite of passage” for teenagers, who would gain a deeper understanding of French values and learn skills such as “how to set up an emergency firstaid post or organise a search for a missing person”.

Participants will also take part in “an experience which can be likened to military training, but without handling weapons”, he added. “In the Ardennes, for example, they will follow an assault course at a military base. In French Guiana, they will go on a commando raid in the jungle for two days.”

There were more volunteers than available places in the first group.

Nicolas, 16, a volunteer from Lille, said he hoped “to do a lot of sport” and get a taste of life as a soldier.