French President Nicolas Sarkozy is thought to be about to reveal the details of a new deployment to Afghanistan at a Nato summit, which is being staged this week in Bucharest, Romania.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon told the National Assembly: "Our armed forces in Afghanistan may invest more in the command structures, particularly in Kabul, in training the Afghan army and in the units in the Afghan provinces. The numbers could be something like a few hundred extra soldiers."
The Socialists opposition party have warned that France could be heading for a "new Vietnam", and Jean-Marc Ayrault suggested that Nicolas Sarkozy's "Atlantic obsession" of closer ties with America was behind the move.
