France Resumes Limited NATO Military Voting

France, which withdrew from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966, has discreetly reclaimed limited voting rights in the organization’s supreme military committee, a senior military official said Thursday.

He said that air force Maj. Gen. Jean-Paul Pelisson now votes on peacekeeping operations discussed by the military committee, NATO’s top military decision-taking body, but reverts to non-voting observer status on other issues.

France, which long had observer status on the standing military committee, quietly resumed partial voting rights there last month, the official said.

“This doesn’t mean we are returning to the integrated military command, but it does mean we are going to be heard when international peacekeeping, in which we are highly active, is involved,” he said.

The official said the move was a small but significant step demonstrating France’s clear determination to tighten links with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Without returning to NATO’s integrated military command, we want to demonstrate that there are more relaxed relations between France and the Atlantic Alliance,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Richard Duque said earlier.

“We are very attached to the Atlantic Alliance and particularly to the presence of American troops in Europe.”

President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from NATO’s integrated military command because he said Washington refused to share major decision-making with its allies there.