French President Nicolas Sarkozy has submitted a formal request to rejoin the NATO command structure following a 43-year absence, French and NATO officials said on Friday.
A letter with the request was presented on Thursday to NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer during an EU summit in Brussels, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
Submitting the letter was a formality, but an essential step in France’s return to the alliance — which will celebrate its 60th birthday in two weeks.
The NATO official said the alliance must now decide what sort of command posts France will take up.
Upon fully returning to NATO, France expects to receive two command posts — one in Norfolk, Virginia, responsible for defining the strategic transformation of the alliance, and another in Lisbon.
In 1966, president Charles de Gaulle abruptly pulled France out of the NATO command and evicted all allied troops and bases, including its military headquarters, from France in an effort to assert sovereignty over its own territory.
France remained a NATO member, but has stayed outside the decision-making core since de Gaulle’s pullout.
De Gaulle’s assertion of French independence at the height of the Cold War came as a shock at the time and caused a rift with Washington that deepened in 2003, when France kept its troop out of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Sarkozy, a conservative, has sought to mend frayed relations with the US since taking office in 2007, and the election of US President Barack Obama has boosted his efforts.
Earlier this month, Sarkozy announced his intention to rejoin NATO’s integrated military command, insisting he wanted France to be able participate fully in alliance military planning and in crafting NATO policy.
The US and NATO welcomed Sarkozy’s comments, but the French leader’s plan aroused fierce passions among both leftist and some conservative lawmakers at home. They voiced fears that a closer relationship with the US-led alliance could limit France’s prized ability to act independently on the world stage.
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