Is the EU trying to hamstring the French military?

Much recent discussion has focussed on the collapse of Afghanistan and the decline of the West. The humiliating American-led Western retreat from Kabul is most poignant for the signal it sends to other ‘protected’ states, present-day and future. The Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, Global Times, mockingly jibed in its editorial at the history of America abandoning its allies and warning how this might be an omen for Taiwan. But the Afghan smokescreen has obscured another aspect of Western decline: a European Court of Justice ruling of 15 July enforcing the same restrictions on ‘work time’ for member states’ military personnel as for any other worker, except on clearly specified military operations. If applied to the letter, the ruling would hamstring France as an effective operational military power and by extension constrain an important arm of western defence.

France is at present the sixth world military power. As one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council wielding a veto and the fourth largest nuclear power, France is about to see its operational capability – which underpins its diplomacy – undermined.