National service debate returns
Since Charlie Hebdo attacks a new scheme has been introduced but many MPs are calling to make it compulsory
THE reintroduction of compulsory national service has been raised by MPs on both left and right following the latest attacks in Paris.
Certain of them have pushed for a compulsory military element to be reintroduced.
MP Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, president of the group Debout la France, said he would be tabling a law in the National Assembly to re-establish a tour of military or civic service of three months for every person in France.
He said it would “strengthen our young people who, in some cases, no longer recognise our republican values”.
The UDI senator Sylvie Goy-Chavent wrote on Twitter that France should “never have scrapped military service”.
“Even if it’s expensive, we must bring aimless youths back in line,” she said.
The national secretary in charge of integration in the Républicain party, Nadia Hamour has also backed the proposal.
From the left, MP Marie-Françoise Bechtel described national service as “a link between the security of our territory...and integration”. She said France needed to look at external and internal causes behind the attacks.
Several MPs from different parties have co-signed a letter she has written to François Hollande setting out plans for a service of three of six months which would cover different forms of civil protection in the country.
The debate on national service was reignited at the start of the year following the Charlie Hebdo attacks and further shootings in Paris.
A trial of a new Service Militaire Volontaire scheme was launched in October in the Moselle. It will also be tried in the Essonne and Charente-Maritimes.
It is military in character (attendees wear uniforms and live in a barracks) but is mostly aimed at improving basic skills for young unemployed people.
However Le Figaro reports that President François Hollande was “not convinced at all” about making such a scheme compulsory.
Apart from this there is an existing “civic service” scheme, which is also optional, and involves paid volunteering work.
Socialist MP Christophe Castaner said: “The civic service such as it exists today has a major problem: it doesn’t affect everyone, and it doesn’t target precisely those who are the most distant from society.”
He added that following the events of January, the country’s national education system could no longer be seen as sufficient for national cohesion.
