បារាំង: Military

Military 

thumb|upright=1.5|Examples of France's military. Clockwise from top left: Nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle; A Rafale fighter aircraft; French Chasseurs Alpins patrolling the valleys of Kapisa province in Afghanistan; a Leclerc tank in Paris for the 14 July Bastille Day Military Parade.

The French Armed Forces (Armées françaises) are the military and paramilitary forces of France, under the president as supreme commander. They consist of the French Army (Armée de Terre), French Navy (Marine Nationale), the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) and the auxiliary paramilitary force, the National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie nationale) and are among the largest armed forces in the world. While administratively a part of the French armed forces, and therefore under the purview of the Ministry of Defence, the Gendarmerie is operationally attached to the Ministry of the Interior.

The gendarmerie is a military police force which serves for the most part as a rural and general purpose police force. It encompasses the counter terrorist units of the Parachute Intervention Squadron of the National Gendarmerie (Escadron Parachutiste d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) and the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale). One of the French intelligence units, the Directorate-General for External Security (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) reports to the Ministry of Defence. The other, the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur), reports directly to the Ministry of the Interior. There has been no national conscription since 1997. La fin du service militaire obligatoire – La documentation française

France is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN, and a recognised nuclear state since 1960. France has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and acceeded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. France's annual military expenditure in 2011 was US$62.5 billion, or 2.3%, of its GDP making it the fifth biggest military spender in the world after the United States, China, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

French nuclear deterrence, (formerly known as “Force de Frappe”), relies on complete independence. The current French nuclear force consists of four Triomphant class submarines equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In addition to the submarine fleet, it is estimated that France has about 60 ASMP medium-range air-to-ground missiles with nuclear warheads, Centre de Documentation et de Recherche sur la Paix et les Conflits, Etat des forces nucléaires françaises au 15 août 2004  of which around 50 are deployed by the Air Force using the Mirage 2000N long-range nuclear strike aircraft, while around 10 are deployed by the French Navy's Super Étendard Modernisé (SEM) attack aircraft which operate from the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. The new Rafale F3 aircraft will gradually replace all Mirage 2000N and SEM in the nuclear strike role with the improved ASMP-A missile with a nuclear warhead.

France has major military industries with one of the largest aerospace industries in the world. Its industries have produced such equipment as the Rafale fighter, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, the Exocet missile and the Leclerc tank amongst others. Despite withdrawing from the Eurofighter project, France is actively investing in European joint projects such as the Eurocopter Tiger, multipurpose frigates, the UCAV demonstrator nEUROn and the Airbus A400M. France is a major arms seller,"En 2001, la France a vendu pour 1,288 milliard de dollars d'équipements militaires, ce qui la met au troisième rang mondial des exportateurs derrière les États-Unis et la Russie." " In 2001, France sold $1,288 billion of military equipment, ranking 3rd in the world for arms exportations behind the USA and Russia" La France demeure un fournisseur d'armes de premier plan (France stays one of the biggest arms supplier)  – L'express. 13 June 2002"La France est au 4ème rang mondial des exportateurs d'armes, derrière les Etats-Unis, le Royaume-Uni et la Russie, et devant Israël, selon un rapport du ministère de la Défense publié l'an dernier." "France is 4th biggest arms exportator, behind the USA, the UK and Russia, and ahead of Israel, according to a report of the Ministry of Defense published a year ago" Arms sellings explode in 2009 – 20 minutes with most of its arsenal's designs available for the export market with the notable exception of nuclear-powered devices.

The military parade held in Paris each 14 July for France's national day is the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe.Mail Online, Harrowing loss of Afghanistan troops overshadows France's Bastille Day military parade, 14 July 2011. . Retrieved 5 January 2012