Military                                                                                       

The French armed forces are divided into four branches:

·         Army (Armée de Terre)

·         Navy (Marine Nationale)

·         Air Force (Armée de l'Air)

·         Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie Nationale), a military police force which serves for the most part as a rural and general purpose police force. Military age is 17. Since the Algerian War of Independence, conscription has been steadily reduced and was abolished by the government of Jacques Chirac in 1996.

Among the larger European economies, France and the United Kingdom are the only significant spenders on defence: France with 2.6% of GDP, and the UK at 2.4%, according to 2003 figures from NATO. Those two countries account for 40% of EU defence spending. In most other EU countries, defence spending is less than 1.5% of GDP. About 10% of France's defence budget goes toward its force de frappe, or nuclear weapons.