No one's serious at 17, French poet Arthur Rimbaud once wrote. Could Emmanuel Macron prove him wrong? The president is putting French youth to the test with a new programme fulfilling his campaign promise to reintroduce national service: the universal national service (SNU) in which 16 and 17-year-olds will serve for a month. Its purpose? To “promote the concept of commitment and to foster a sense of national unity around common values”. A more inclusive and socially-minded version of traditional French military service (women are conscripted too), which was abolished in 1997 (the final conscripts left in 2002), the SNU is currently in its test phase. The first sessions started last week, with 2,038 young volunteers welcomed for two weeks in 13 centres across France. The SNU day begins at 6:30am with a daily ceremony of flag-raising and “Marseillaise” chanting. T
