Inside the historic corridors of the Ecole Militaire, a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower in Paris's elegant 7th arrondissement, the walls are lined with recruitment posters. Here, 26-year-old Charlotte, a marketing professional for a private firm, finds herself questioning the trajectory of her career. "I sometimes wonder about the usefulness of my work in marketing," she says, asking to be identified only by her first name for privacy reasons. A Russian language graduate, she is now seriously considering joining the French military or intelligence services. For Charlotte, the decision is not merely personal; it is driven by a "geopolitical context" that she believes requires Europeans to become more "sovereign" in their own defence. Her sentiment is becoming increasingly common across France. As the United States, under President Donald Trump, continues to shift its stance toward its NATO and European Union allies, Paris is positioning itself at the vanguard of a continental effort to prepare for a future where Washington can no longer be relied upon as the primary guarantor of security. The stakes are high. While Trump has recently described his traditional European allies as "weak" and a "group of countries in decline," France is moving to prove the opposite. By the third or fourth year of this decade, French officials believe the continent may face what the Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces, General Fabien Mandon, describes as a "violent test" imposed by Moscow—a challenge France may have to confront with little to no support from the United States. To meet this looming threat, Paris is accelerating its military spending, ramping up weapons production, and doubling the size of its reserve forces. Most notably, beginning next year, the government plans to reinstate voluntary military service, specifically targeting 18- and 19-year-olds. The objective is ambitious: attracting 3,000 recruits by the coming summer, 10,000 by 2030, and 50,000 by 2035. This pivot marks the deepest reassessment of European security since the end of the Cold War. While successive American presidents, including Barack Obama and Joe Biden, warned for over a decade that Washington would eventually shift its focus to the Indo-Pacific, the Trump administration has begun translating these warnings into tangible policy. This shift places a spotlight on France—the EU's only nuclear power and a nation with a robust, independent arms industry. Paris has long championed "strategic autonomy," an idea rooted in a deep-seated historical scepticism of American reliability. This wariness traces back to the 1956 Suez Crisis, when US President Dwight Eisenhower forced French and British forces to withdraw from Egypt, leaving a lasting sense of betrayal in Paris. It was this event that shaped the Gaullist doctrine, leading Charles de Gaulle to withdraw from NATO's integrated military command and develop an independent nuclear deterrent. Today, European capitals that were once hesitant to imagine a security landscape without the US are beginning to concede that the French vision may have been prescient. With Trump's return to the White House this January, the signals of American withdrawal are intensifying. From questioning the commitment to NATO's Article 5 to reducing troop levels in Romania and pursuing unprecedented talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, the "American umbrella" appears to be folding. "If France and Germany provide credible options, other European countries may hesitate [to look elsewhere]," says Guillaume Lagane, a defence policy expert and professor at Sciences Po. "But if the American guarantee remains the only credible one, they will do everything they can to obtain it." To bolster its credibility as a continental leader, Lagane suggests France might consider deploying nuclear-capable Rafale fighter jets to Germany or Poland, filling the gaps left by departing American forces. Already, France leads a multinational NATO battlegroup in Romania, has reinforced its presence in Estonia, and is discussing troop deployments to Finland. However, this leadership role is not without internal hurdles. France is currently grappling with domestic political volatility and the rise of the National Rally, a right-wing party traditionally sceptical of both NATO and the EU, which could potentially take power by 2027. Despite these uncertainties, the drive to recruit the next generation continues. For young professionals like Charlotte, the reality of the international situation has become impossible to ignore. While she has yet to make her final decision, she remains convinced that the global climate will not improve anytime soon. "It is very important for our generation to be aware," she says, "and to know how to serve its country."
