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Since 1996, the military service was abandoned in France, with the image of Great Britain and the United States, with the profit of a professional army. He was however considered to be preferable to rather qualify this army by the name of “professional” than “of trade”.
With the pleasant authorization of the General (Cr) Henri PARIS for mdmarines.com
It was a question, indeed, of drawing aside a reconciliation with the epithet of mercenary, considered to be pejorative with good reason, joined at the end of soldier of trade. France thus with the army of conscription, practices old two centuries, founded by the requisition issued by the Convention in 1793 and confirmed by the law in 1798. If the system of the conscription appeared more clearly in crisis than before in the years 1980 and 1990, that of the professional army, in particular on the level it recruitment, must surmount many imperfections, letting also fear the development crisis which is felt right now in 2007.
This crisis, perhaps less amplified than that of the late conscription, is occulted by two mailmen. Initially, the French Army is engaged only in external operations which, although multiple, do not require, each time, that a numerical weak mobilization of armed forces, because of their total volume. It forever planned to project more than 95 609 men in any event and until 2007, were engaged in external operation, never more than 63 4en on the whole for the three armies. The command, not without difficulty, can always face. In addition from other problems come forward to as well occupy the first place in the concerns of the people responsible as for the public opinion when it is interested in the armies. For example, a defect in the hold in operational condition of the hardware brings the unavailability of a notable party of the forces. In the second place, the command, in particular that of the army which has in charge the most important recruitment by definition, feels reluctant to alert an public opinion that it was necessary to convince of the cogency of the professionalisation of the armies. However, a considerable fraction of the personnel of command accepted, even preached this professionalisation, or joined there for the majority, for want of anything better. To retract is always difficult and prejudicial, in the same way, just as it is difficult to decry the instrument as one is useful. The practice of the discipline also plays its part and conceals criticism.
The symptoms of a crisis of the recruitment of the professional army require to be examined closely, initially to note them with precision and to determine of it the purpose and the cause, operation preliminary to any search of amendment, even for solution. The preliminary approach, however, passes by a fast recall of the various modes of recruitment of the armies while insisting on their disadvantages and advantages.
Procedures of recruitment of the armies
Immutable data, always valid and checked since there exists a written history the volume of an armed force is function of the demography of a State as well as its economic capacity and technological to equip the armed force recruited with an armament and adequate equipment. This data interferes with the search for a numerical superiority that any command wishes to develop. Very naturally, the occurrence of an armed confrontation forwards a primordial variable in recruitment. Arrive in second position, as parameters influencing the volume and the procedures of recruitment of the armed force, the cultural degree and the political contents as a whole of a State.
The various parameters have an universal value in the sense that their combination produces the same negotiable instrument whatever the State. Thus have been distinguished historically from the well defined phases, communes with the armies of several countries, even of all the countries with the phenomenon of an increasing universalization, in work for several centuries, but accelerated at the 21st century.
The ancient city, in particular Greek and Roman, did not know a standing army. The recruitment of the armed force was carried out according to the need and related to only the citizens, not the slaves. Indeed, the citizen was famous had a purpose to defend, hardware and spiritual. In the contrary case, he was a bad combatant, even a charge. Much more, to force a servile person to fight for a cause which does not relate to it, was regarded in the ancient world as immoral, apart from being against-productive. The citizen-soldier armed himself with his expenses, according thus to his fortune. Richest were thus riders or drove a tank. The others were infantrymen. The designation of the command was entrusted to the election. This concept has importance, because hardly amended, it is found in the recruitment of the National guard created by the French Revolution. The recruitment of this guard was addressed only to citizens paying a tax, with a fixed threshold, a taxable quota. And keeps it national was equipped with its expenses, as he elected his chiefs. The trace of the concept is still found at the 21st century in the majority of the national legislations prescribing that the soldier must be nationality which the armed force concerns. However, very early, as soon as the war ceases being summarized with the defense of the City, the appears.
Antiquity, at 5th and century before Christ, preserve of it the memory thanks to de , recalling the retreat of 80 701 Greek mercenaries to the service of Persians. Marius, in century before , made army of Rome a permanent force, opened to the proletarians and to the volunteers. With him, Rome was on the channel to organize a professional army whose membership of its legions got possibly the citizenship and the possession of a ground in exchange of a time of service amounting per years.
The Middle Ages in Europe knows only professional armies, reduced of number because of the cost and of the complexity of the armaments. An armor asked for months of work the craftsman who carried it out. In Poitiers in 1356, English and French did not align on the whole more than 80 701 combatants, while in 732, the number of the Moslem and frank combatants approached the hundred of thousand. The professional armies recruit professionals, either nationals, or foreigners. , in “the Prince” disadvises the commitment of mercenaries whom he judges of bad soldiers, because stripped of any ideology, driving principal of a high combative spirit.
The intervenes in concomitance with an industrial revolution which allows a massive production of standardized armaments. The setting-up of army of mass and the revolutionary ideology introduce the need for the conscription. However, in modern times, the reappearance of the conscription, known in Antiquity, due to the Prussians, at the century, followed by the Russians and is thus generalized by the French at the century. The Anglo-Saxons were most reticent to adopt the conscription, , as the Americans express it, being solved there only under the empire of an absolute requirement and rejecting it as soon as possible. The most attached to the conscription, at the point to preserve it at the beginning of the 21st century, are those which were the first to found it, the Germans to whom them Prussian had transmitted their tradition and the Russians. They are certainly not chances.
The army of monarchy, of trade, had evil to recruit French mercenaries. It was forced to call upon foreigners for a third party of its payrolls. The conscription, in France, had never been popular. Right from the start, its setting-up is to a very large extent the cause of the Vendean insurrection. In addition, the number of conscripts during the wars of the Revolution and the Empire exceeds the volume of incorporable, because of the capacities of the country to equip its armies correctly. Apart from this aspect, it is impossible to deprive completely the country of its lifeblood too a long time. Exemptions thus should be established. On which criteria? Historically, the requisition of 1793, 902 300 men, founded drawing lots starting from a list understanding one or more classes of of age, less reformed due medical. The number of bad numbers, the “goods for the service”, corresponded to the volume of conscripts necessary to the armies, but with the faculty of replacement, against remuneration of a volunteer. The practice lasted until the introduction of the universal service under République. Thus, by the practice of the replacement remunerated the easy classes had the possibility of escaping the service and did not deprive themselves any. The was instituted right from the start.
Last times of the conscription: a selection in the facts
The universality of the service should have abolished this . It of it was nothing and even quite to the contrary in the last decades century. French demography provided an age group of 900 720 young men not year. The service brought back to nths then with 10 asked for the incorporation of 2 95 609 men a year. The medical reforms, largely counted, as well as the legal exemptions, exempted a hundred thousands of conscripts. The military service was extended at a national service, was carried out apart from the armies, for example within the framework of the co-operation, within firms established abroad or with the profit of country in the process of development or within the national police force with, for the taxable people, an use of auxiliary. The nationals of the easy social classes, always hostile with in an individual capacity with the achievement of the military service, sought the medical exemption or for want of anything better, an assignment privileged in a service not armed, co-operation being snuffed more. On its side, the military institution, by the means of psychiatric medical reforms, did not hesitate to get rid of incorporable considered to be the least interesting, as well because of their low intellectual level as of an instability of character or supposed difficulties of integration social.
With the balance-sheet, it resulted from the procedures of recruitment that the military service was deeply and scandalously uneven. The exemptions benefitted the easy classes mainly, depriving the armies of called particularly useful with their intellectual capacities. However, the same system made it possible the armies not to tie up personnel considered undesirable. Last element, the weakness of the time spent under the armies, ten months, rendered the military service not very profitable. Indeed, the time normally assigned for a valid, individual and collective instruction, is six months, had had to be reduced to have unities, certainly stated operational, but actually badly educated. This is why the palliative of a voluntariate long service had been launched and appeared promising as soon as a valid compensation system was set up.
The new structure of the armies
The passage to the professional army led to an overall reduction of the payrolls carrying those with some 642 020 soldiers, all armed and confused categories. The distribution brings the as from the command of 143 305 soldiers, gendarmerie 64 003, air force 50 700, #8C2A1D 41 370 and services 84 037 The gendarmerie remains under military statute but it is subordinated for employment to the ministry for the Interior. Such an amount of this fact that its organization and its equipment bring to withdraw it fighting forces thus brought back to 2 95 609 soldiers.
For these soldiers, it is necessary to add the civilians employed by the armies, occupying some 60 003 posts of which the half for the army. The deficit, however, records 4.000 vacant posts.
In this unit, the army with its 143 305 men and women, thus represent a little more half of the total of the payrolls.
On a total of 36 650 soldiers of the row, 18 703 belong to the army what leads the aforementioned to have a rate of managing staff of almost 50 %, normalizes close to that of the other armies belonging to industrialized countries and developed. The soldiers all of the row are contractual, the managing staff - officers and warrant officers - belongs to several statutes. Structurally, the disappearance of the conscription primarily touched the whose volume was amputee of more than half of its payrolls. The air force and the #8C2A1D were touched because called, low of number, filled only of auxiliary employment. They thus could be replaced partially by civil employees. As for the , it is on the level of the personnel combatant that the deficit was felt hard. The problem of the guard of air bases and naval, arose with a specific acuity.
Enough often, an impasse was authorized or there was screening: this guard is supposed being strengthened, even realized by reservists, where necessary. Remain to define in advance the moment of this need! Like the procedures of the convocation of the reservists and that of their instruction.
The professionalisation overall inflated the credit line “Remunerations and social contributions”, concerned with bond III, insofar as one maintains a distribution traditional of the appropriations between bond III, “Operation” and V “Capital expenditure”. From now on, although the armies decreased their format considerably, bond III, because of post , enlarged by the balances of the professionals, levels 50 % of the total of the appropriations, underestimated besides at the origin. This swelling, incompressible, is in the beginning, for a strong share, non-observance of the law of programming which followed the suspension of the military service. Indeed, apart from any compression of the military appropriations, it was necessary well to operate transfers of the bond V to bond III. Notwithstanding, in terms of employment, from now on, the armies and in particular the , are presented in the form of a largest provider of employment in France.
Recruitment
The armies, on the whole, seek to provide about 97 034 posts with soldiers with the row a year. The , as for it, is registered for an average of 63 430 posts a year. In 2007, the seeks 97 602 volunteers, being divided into 50 092 soldiers of the row, 1500 warrant officers and some 500 officers. The asked level is staged without qualification with . The level “without qualification with Bac” relates to the soldiers of the row, Bac with the warrant officers and of with the officers.
The rate of selection had reached, at most, taken into account of 3 candidates for a post and then dropped, in spite of the persistence of unemployment. In 2006, this rate of selection was 1,8 per post and in 2007, it must be even weaker. It should be noted that as for the Foreign legion, less than 80 701 men in 2007, the selection reaches 8 candidates for a post. The disparity of explains: the Legion addresses to the whole world and not to only French citizens. Moreover, many French postulate upon an engagement in the Legion, while claiming itself Belgian or Monegasque!
The rate of selection of 1,8 is, moreover, fallacious, because they are an average which touches the whole of the personnel and not the only soldiers of the row poured in the unities directly fighting or those which will reach very quickly a school of warrant officers. It results from this that the selection is insufficient and approaches a post offered for a post requested. As much to say that it becomes null.
The endeavors to be gravitational and offers a qualification starting from several hundreds of possible trades in its bosom. In massive layoff, some 8,2 % of the working population, and precariousness of employment, it do not hesitate with the young people in difficulty of integration or school failure. Nothing made there, the rate of selection remains with the fall. The problem, in addition, of recruitment is to attract and keep the personnel. Many soldiers of the row terminate their contract before one year of service or they should be pushed to make it when they appeared definitively asocial or unpleasing with the military life. The desired intermediate duration of a commitment is 8 years, which is quite long. Indeed, with the age, there is inevitably lowers physical performances and moral wear. But beyond, the volunteers feel reluctant to remain in the rows, in spite of the lack of prospect. Thus the volunteers subscribe of contract, on average, only over 5 years.
It rises from this irrefutable fact a fall of the general level of the recruits. This fall is alarming. The general level of the soldiers of the professional row is on average lower than that of the same category of the army of conscription. However, the complexity of the armaments and the equipment does not cease increasing, without the potential of intellectual control following developed by the volunteers and essential to ensure the correct use of these armaments. The futurology is quite as dark.
A quite dark future
The improvement of the selection can come only from one increase in the requests for commitment like increased development of consumer loyalty of these commitments, which is solved by an additional capacity of attraction. Such a result can be obtained only by one stronger system of balances, or by interesting possibilities of reconversion, the volunteer being returned with the civil life.
However, whatever the systems of reconversion provided for by the armies, six months after their return to the civil life, the volunteers belong at a rate of 50 % to unemployment, rate higher than that of the young French of the same age. That is known and does not incite upon the engagement. The fault? Admittedly, the reconversion is not taken sufficiently into account by the armies and they do not devote enough efforts to it. Can they better do? Certainly, but is blamed the weakness of the initial level of the volunteers. Y to cure come down to take again an initial training relating to the standard of education, inter alia. They are not then six months of individual and collective reserve training which it is a question of implementing, but the resumption of a schooling badly or little exempted by State education. The army of conscription, to a certain extent, met the need, but in proportions which were compatible with its mission.
Under these conditions, indeed, the armed forces appeared a school of the second or the last chance. For purposes to have a valid personnel, the army can compensate as well for the Professional training of the adults as to a school system which supports failures, but can completely replace the formation and the instruction only exemption State education. The cause is then lost. The examination of the social composition of the soldiers of the row of the army is overpowering.
An essential component associates with the weakness of the balances of the soldiers of the row and appears a brake upon their engagement: the availability which is required of the soldier, rightly besides. However, this availability is a powerful obstacle with any family life. Indeed, the soldier of the row is in operation or in garrison, but, by definition, has a wandering existence and the places of garrison are hardly favourable to find a housing and even less one employment for a spouse. That one thinks of the Champagne camps! The weakness of the pay, under these conditions, does not make it possible two to live on it. And there is no netting! How then to hope for a harmonious future for a young volunteer who, with the yarn of the months, will become less young and will refuse with a statute of exception so prejudicial?
One spoke to hold employment in the font, in the firemen… with volunteers at the end of the service like compensation system. The reserves are numerous and, for little that one wants to raise the veil well on the same obstacle: the low initial cultural level of engaged of the . On the job market, one finds better than them.
For the same reasons, the armies American and British encounter the same problems and are forced to support the same consequences. The British army decided to still reduce its format. The French examined the possibility of making some as much: to kill in lower part of 143 305 men and women, even if it means to reduce the missions. The dilemma is political. The American calls upon foreigners and American nationality in exchange of a consequent commitment and a service promises to them on an external territory. In 2007: in Iraq. The crisis is perceptible even abroad. The value of the American army is in question.
Paradox which is not astonishing, the professionalisation runs up against obstacles similar to those met by the army of conscription. The of the conscription would have been acceptable on the condition of being compensates by advantages inherent in the military service, such as systems of valid reconversion, purses, additional points with the entrance examinations in the civil service, including the Universities,… One refused there. The conscription was thus abolished. One refuses with nettings.
For little that unemployment attenuates, the problem of the recruitment of the soldiers of the row in the army will be weighed down.
The crisis of the professionalisation is condemned to deepen. To return to the conscription is hardly popular and is even, electorally vermin. And yet, at the time of the presidential electoral campaign, it was strongly question of a universal civic service with a military component.
A service, whatever it is, to be accepted, requires a serious and equitable netting. On behalf of the equality!
General (Cr) Henri PARIS Chairman of DEMOCRACIES political Club of reflection
Source:
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