Conscription in France

France was the first modern nation state to introduce universal military conscription as a condition of citizenship. This was done in order to provide manpower for the country's military at the time of the French Revolution. Conscription continued in various forms for two hundred years until being finally phased out between 1996 and 2001.

The French royal army of the 17th and 18th centuries had consisted primarily of long-service regulars together with a number of regiments recruited from foreign mercenaries. Limited conscription for local militia units was widely resented and only enforced in times of emergency.

Universal conscription in the modern sense originated during the French Revolution, when the Republic needed stronger military forces, initially to defend the country against counter-revolutionary invasion and subsequently to expand its radical ideas throughout Europe. The 1798 Jourdan law stated: "Any Frenchman is a soldier and owes himself to the defense of the nation".

Napoleon Bonaparte consequently inherited a greatly expanded army based on conscription, from which he created the Grande Armée.

Following the Napoleonic Wars, the restored Bourbon monarchy returned to its traditional reliance on long service volunteers plus some Swiss and German mercenary regiments. Numbers were filled out by limited conscription by lot, the burden of which spared the middle and upper classes who could afford to purchase exemptions. This unequal system continued until the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Under the Third Republic the French Army became the "school of the nation" utilizing general military service following the Prussian model. Shorter periods of service, alternative hospital duties or other forms of exemption were however still permitted for certain categories such as student teachers and priests. It was not until 1905 that universal military service for a period of two years, without exception on any but medical grounds, was introduced.

In 1913 France introduced a "Three Year Law" to extend the term of French military service to match the size of the Kaiser's Army. France's population lagged significantly behind Germany in 1913; the population of mainland France was 40 million as opposed to Germany's 60 million. In contrast to Germany and Russia, who were able to offer exemptions or deferments to accommodate educational commitments or family circumstances, France required virtually all fit males of the appropriate age group to undertake full-time military service for three years from the age of 20. As part of the 1913 measures a limited form of selective conscription was imposed on the Muslim population of Algeria, who had previously been required only to offer volunteers for service in the French Army.

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