Polls show Jean-Luc Mélenchon could reach the French presidential election’s second round next year.

Archived copy is here: https://archive.is/DqZ6m

The article says this:

“Immediately withdraw from NATO’s integrated command and then, in stages, from the organization itself. Reject the tribute demanded by the United States of 5% of GDP devoted to defense spending,” read France Unbowed’s 222-page program.

However, France under Mélenchon would still provide assistance to European Union countries under EU treaties, the document added

Is Melenchon right? Is it better for the EU to be the organisation of mutual defence guarantees for Europe, rather than NATO?

  • petrescatraian@libranet.de
    8·
    3 days ago

    Good luck lowering the GDP spending for defence while leaving NATO at the same time. I understand France is a nuclear power, but it’s less strong than US, Russia or China. Also, how are they gonna maintain all the nuclear arsenal?

    • JasSmith@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      41·
      2 days ago

      It appears they’re taking the stance of the UK Green party: if they just have a cozy coffee with Putin, he’ll understand how mean he has been and stop. In the mean time, let’s dismantle our military and ensure we cannot defend ourselves. Literally nothing could go wrong.

    • stormdelay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      10·
      3 days ago

      The nuclear arsenal is expensive but it was maintained and modernized just fine when we were barely spending 2%, we don’t need to compete against China or the US for it to be sufficient

      Not that leaving NATO anytime soon is even close to being reasonable

      • petrescatraian@libranet.de
        1·
        2 days ago

        I saw that you’re actually investing more into your nuclear capabilities tho, like that submarine that was launched earlier this year. Besides that, there’s a lot of stuff that changed in warfare since everyone was spending 2%. And now others have increased their spending as well. It does suck, indeed, but it is what it is.

        • stormdelay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          That submarine was planned for and built under the 2% budget. What wasn’t is the announced warhead count increase, which probably wouldn’t have happened under the previous spending target, going from 290 to an undisclosed number.