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 . History . Origins . 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 Act 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 . Nineteenth century . 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 , the burden of which spared the middle and upper classes who could purchase exemption . This unequal system continued until the Franco - Prussian War of 1870 . Under the Third Republic the French Army became the " school of the nation " utilising universal military service following the Prussian model . " Three Year Law " of 1913 . 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 . World War I . With war imminent , 2 . 9 million men were mobilized in August 1914 . These comprised conscripts undertaking their three years of obligatory service , reservists of ages 24 to 30 who had completed their period of full - time service , and territorials drawn from older men up to the age of 45 . While reservists had been required to undertake periodic re - training in the form of annual maneuvers , the territorials had no peace - time commitment and were not intended for employment in the front - line in the event of war . However France ' s heavy losses on the Western Front required the deployment of all three categories of conscripted man - power , especially during the early months of the war . World War II . France had retained conscription between the two world wars , though they relied upon the French regulars of the Colonial Army , native regiments and the Foreign Legion to garrison its overseas empire . However , the birth rate dropped , primarily due to the fact that over a million young Frenchmen had been killed off in the First World War and many more had been wounded . French morale also sank , and the French High Command mainly consisted of old commanders who had led troops in the First World War . On the outbreak of war , the Commander - in - Chief General Maurice Gamelin was already past retirement age . In sending his best troops and the whole of the BEF through Belgium , he attempted to refight the Great War . He gravely underestimated the German Army ' s tactics , however , which contributed to the Fall of France and over 4 years of occupation . Under German pressure , the small " Armistice Army " of the Vichy regime broke away from the now classical French dependence on conscription in favour of voluntary enlistment . Post - war period and the end of conscription . Following liberation in 1944 , France returned to a universal military service system . However conscripts were not required to serve in the Indo - China War of 1947 - 54 which was fought by French and colonial volunteers plus the Foreign Legion and locally recruited forces . By contrast the Algerian War of 1954 - 62 involved the extensive use of conscripts on the rationale that Algeria was legally part of metropolitan France . France suspended peacetime military conscription in 1996 . President Jacques Chirac ' s government formally announced the end of compulsory military service in 2001 . Young people must still , however , register for possible obligatory service of an unspecified nature ( should the need arise ) . A recent change is that women must now register as well .