President Nicolas Sarkozy warned yesterday he may accelerate the French withdrawal from Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier shot dead four unarmed French troops during a sports session inside a base.
Mr Sarkozy suspended French military training and joint combat operations with Afghan troops, and sent Defence Minister Gerard Longuet to probe an attack in which at least 15 French soldiers were also wounded, eight seriously.
The French role in the Nato-led mission in Afghanistan was already deeply unpopular at home and – less than 100 days before presidential elections – Mr Sarkozy appeared to be preparing the ground for a rapid withdrawal.
Mr Sarkozy’s Socialist opponent and – according to opinion polls – the most likely victor in the poll, Francois Hollande, said that if he is elected he would order the 3,600-strong contingent home by the end of the year.
France was already concentrating on training Afghan forces and accompanying them in combat rather than leading its own offen-sives against Taliban rebels, so yesterday’s suspension of operations effectively halted its core role.
“The French army stands alongside its allies but we cannot accept that a single one of our soldiers be wounded or killed by our allies, it’s unacceptable,” a clearly tired and angry Sarkozy told diplomats.
“If security conditions are not clearly established, then the question of an early return of the French army will be asked,” he warned.
The attack came as the New York Times published details from a classified coalition report that said attacks from Afghan troops are a growing threat.
“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” it said.
Nato played down the threat, insisting attacks were rare.
“Such tragic incidents are terrible and grab headlines but they are isolated,” Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, noting that 130,000 Nato-led international troops are serving alongside 300,000 Afghans.