#3 I know I repeat the same stuff over and over, thus illustrating my lack of knowledge and deep thought (and mad cow disease?), but :
- a survey found that only 1 in 10 muslim teen would fight for France.
- an internal survey by the french army found similar results (don't remember the exact figures, but it was circa 1 in 10 too) when asking if muslim volunteers would fight against a muslim ennemy; one tv reportage about the integration by the army showed young males and females talking about their committment to the army, and, yes, they told they wouldn't fight against "their country" (algeria, Morocco,... possibly extended to any muslim nation).
Btw, french army is which an all-volunteer force modelled after the brit army (that was one of the grand project of Shiraq's first mandate), and a bankrupt one, I might add; a large part of the equipment is not working due to logistical issues (I don't remember the exact numbers I read in an army mag complaing about that, because I'm sub-average, but theses were in the vicinity of 1/3 of X vehicles are not available due to lack of parts, 2/5 of Y,...).
All in all, french army is in very bad shape, low morale, recruitment problems, cohesiveness issues (due to, you guessed, it to an affirmative action drive aiming at recruiting youths from the 'hoods, who bring their "habits" with them... about 20% of french army is now muslim, up to 30-40% in active duty units like paratroopers), political troubles (Michèle Alliot-Marie, probably on behalf of our Dear Leader sacked officers, including a general, due to the death of an ivorian cutthroat while in custody, this is seen as a scapegoating move to bail out of the ivorian quagmire, and possibly as an attack agains tDominique Galouzeau "de Villepin"). The only truly functioning part of our army is a "colonial" force, marines, special forces, some selected units (paratroopers and alpine troops) and foreign legion, which retains high standards.
In relation to the low level urban guerilla around Paris, I've read and am led to believe the army wouldn't be able to step in on a large scale; it could only act in localised spots, and would be unable to counter a massive uprising, and even less fight an counter-insurgency war (like it very successfully did in algeria). |
France has been detecting, or at least fearing, loyalty problems among the fifteen percent of its soldiers who are Moslem. The military insists that these second and third generation soldiers of, for the most part, Arab descent, are loyal. But many Christian soldiers, NCOs and officers are not so sure. Harassment of Moslem troops by Christian soldiers is common. There have been no major incidents of soldiers turned terrorists, but the abuse from paranoid soldiers, NCOs and officers might push Moslem soldiers to go bad. This is believed more likely because there are no Moslem chaplains. Thus Moslem soldiers seek spiritual advice from clerics with no military experience, and possible a radical agenda. More worrisome is that radicalized soldiers will leave the army equipped with skills they can use for terrorist attacks.