France to Rejoin NATO Military Command

摘要

Confirming repeated hints over the past few months, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy officially announced in early March that France would rejoin NATO's military command more than four decades after Gen. De Gaulle led the country out of it.rnPresident Sarkozy stressed that 'France had nothing to lose, and everything to gain", by rejoining the Alliance's military structures. He said that a rapprochement with NATO will increase France's national independence, rather thanrnweakening it as Gen. de Gaulle once thought. Not fully being part of the Atlantic Alliance, he observed, only serves to limit France's margin of manoeuvre. By fully rejoining the NATO's structures, France will be stronger and more influential. France's nuclear arsenal would remain outside of NATO's control, as it is the case with the United States and Britain.