De Gaulle’s grandson calls on France to leave NATO military command

Pierre de Gaulle, grandson of former French President Charles de Gaulle and deputy chairman of the jury of the Leo Tolstoy Peace Prize, has said France should end its strategic dependence on the United States and withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command.

“We need to move away from dependence on the US, strategic dependence,” de Gaulle told RIA Novosti.

De Gaulle said France needed to restore its independence by leaving NATO’s integrated military command. In his view, it is not too late to do so, and the time has come for France to regain legitimacy in the eyes of its own people.

France withdrew from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966 under Charles de Gaulle. In 2009, during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency, the country fully rejoined the alliance’s military structures.

By Vugar Khalilov