France willing to send troops to Afghanistan

France is willing to send its troops to the violence-plagued southern and eastern Afghanistan, if reinforcements are requested in those regions, the French defence minister said today.

Nato allies agreed last month to rush to one another’s aid anywhere in Afghanistan in emergencies.

But key alliance nations including France, Germany, Italy and Spain have refused to send troops regularly to fight alongside the British, Canadian, Dutch and US forces on the front lines of battles with the resurgent Taliban in the restive South and East.

French Minister for Defence Michele Alliot-Marie – on her ninth trip to Afghanistan – said that “our forces in Kabul will be able to go to other regions at the request of our allies to help in a situation that necessitates it”.

French troops would not be sent permanently to the South or the East, but they could be sent as “temporary reinforcements” to assist allied forces in combat situations, Alliot-Marie told a news conference in Kabul.

She made her comments a day after announcing that France would withdraw its 200-strong special forces from the eastern city of Jalalabad – all of its ground troops engaged in the US anti-terror operation code-named Enduring Freedom.