Now a new national service plan has been brought in across the country, with Macron telling a french radio station: “The day that you send a signal of weakness to Russia — which for 10 years has made a strategic choice to become an imperial power again, that’s to say advance wherever we are weak — well, it will continue to advance.”

The United Kingdom does not have national service. However, proposals to reintroduce it did form part of Rishi Sunak‘s manifesto in the last General election.

With youth unemployment high, and growing calls for greater defence spending, the Daily Express asks readers: Should the UK follow France in bringing back National Service?

France’s plan would see hundreds of thousands brought into the forces. The UK has a shrinking army, but hundreds of thousands of young people in no education, employment or training.

The French system would see people volunteer for a 10 month program, with the intention of recruiting 10,000 by the end of the decade.

They would serve in French territory, but not on foreign soil.

There have been calls from former NATO chiefs in the UK for the country to consider reintroducing conscription. Earlier this year General Sir Richard Shirreff, a former NATO commander, joined growing calls for the UK to look at re-introducing conscription which would mean all young people are required to spend a period in military service.

He said: “Where is the mobilising of the defence industries, the mobilising of the national economy to fight a war? This is big stuff. This is really serious.”