'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
), is the land-based component of the French Armed Forces and its largest. As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars and 18,350 part-time reservists , making the French army the 2nd largest in the European Union after the British Army and the 4th largest in NATO after the Armies of the USA, Turkey and UK. All soldiers are now considered professionals, following the suspension of conscription voted in parliament in 1997 and effective as of 2001. Just like the Armée de l'Air, the Marine Nationale and the Gendarmerie Nationale it is placed under the responsibility of the French government. The current Chief of Staff of the French Army (CEMAT) is general Elrick Irastorza. - Source: Wikipedia
Mali will need all the international support it can get to successfully conduct elections in July, the country's first since an international military intervention helped the West African nation beat back a takeover by Islamic extremists in the North, a Mali official said Monday.
In this winter of conservative discontent, one of the most dispiriting things is the congressional Republicans' rampant timidity on spending reduction. They lack both urgency and creativity on how to handle one of America's biggest challenges.
French forces met no resistance Wednesday in Kidal, the Islamists' last major town, as the 2-week-old mission scored another success in its effort to dislodge the al-Qaeda-linked militants from northern Mali.
The Defense Department is providing some support to French troops in their military campaign against al Qaeda in Mali, and is considering more assistance, depending on France's needs, Pentagon press secretary George Little said Tuesday.
France launched airstrikes Friday to help the government of Mali defeat al Qaeda-linked militants who captured more ground this week, dramatically raising the stakes in the battle for this vast desert nation.
The single line of Napoleon's secret code told Paris of his desperate, last order against the Russians: "At three o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin."
There was once a talented young man of mixed African and Caucasian ancestry who was obsessed with the shadow of a black father he barely knew. The father's ghostly presence is at the heart of a book the son wrote, but the father himself remained an obscure figure even after his son achieved greatness. Clearly, there are the makings of a good story here, although -- despite what you may be thinking -- the son in question was not named Barack Obama.
So Nicolas Sarkozy and his center-right government are out, and Francois Hollande and his "moderate" Socialist Party are in ("Hollande wins French presidency over Sarkozy," Web, Sunday).
The normally tranquil city of Orleans is buzzing with festivities over the next two weeks to mark the 600th birthday of one of France's best cultural exports: Joan of Arc.
At 15, he was considered a genius, "model-meek and compliant - eerily so." At 17, his poetry shocked and dazzled the French literary world; at 21, he had stopped writing; at 37, he was dead. Every French-speaking student studies the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud and is familiar with his scandalous love affair with fellow poet Paul Verlaine.
Pierre Schoendoerffer, an Oscar-winning French filmmaker who was held prisoner in Indochina and chronicled the pain of war on screen and on the page, has died. He was 83.
France suspended its training operations in Afghanistan and threatened to withdraw its entire force from the country early after an Afghan soldier shot and killed four French troops Friday and wounded 15 others.
The major leaders in World War II have come down to us as either saints or scoundrels. An exception is the man who led France from exile during World War II, Charles de Gaulle, who is now the subject of a succinct biography by World War II historian Michael Haskew.
It was a warm summer afternoon in the new U.S. Capitol Visitor Center and some European rabbis and imams were exchanging bearhugs.
With 2008 marking the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I, a visit to the places where American soldiers fought and died evokes memories of that war. The names are familiar to an older generation: the Marne, the Meuse, Argonne Forest, Verdun, Champagne, Lorraine.
