With the French in Afstan

From an embedded BBC reporter--video here (via Yrys):

French face tough Afghan reality
For now, the French government is resisting US requests to send more troops

The French government faces a confidence vote in parliament on Tuesday following President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to rejoin Nato's integrated military command.

France is already among the top five contributors to Nato operations and has almost 3,000 troops in Afghanistan. The largest contingent is in the eastern province of Kapisa, where our Paris correspondent, Emma Jane Kirby, has spent two weeks embedded with the troops for Newsnight.

In a low lying village in Nijrab district, crowds of bewildered Afghans struggle to take the blankets, kettles and toys the French soldiers hand out from their armoured vehicles.

It is only just above freezing and the air, trapped by the surrounding mountains, is crisp and thin.

An elderly woman, whose vision is obscured by cataracts, is crying because she cannot find the start of the queue. Instantly, a young French captain, laden down with body armour and rifle, takes her arm and leads her to the front.

"Make way for grandma!" he tells his colleagues. "This old lady's tired - let grandma go first please."

'Very tough contacts'

Until recently, this was the kind of soft image of soldiers that the French government preferred to promote at home to appease a public hostile to this war.

Very few French understand why their country is involved in a conflict more than 5,000km (3,100 miles) away.

During his presidential election campaign in 2007, Mr Sarkozy hinted he might even have withdrawn French forces.

But a year later, he sent an extra army battalion to Afghanistan's rugged and troubled east as part of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) [it appears the French at first did not expect too much combat].

With the porous border of Pakistan just over the Hindu Kush, the elite brigade [battalion--see below] of "Chasseurs Alpins" or mountain infantry, is tasked with trying to stop insurgents coming into the valleys and blocking the supply routes to Kabul.

The insurgent attacks are frequent and brutal - sometimes the battles last for four hours.

A suggestion by the UK and US militaries that the French do not shoulder their fair share of the war's risk irritates Colonel Nicolas Le Nen, commander of the 27th Regiment de Chasseurs [a battalion actually; they arrived late last year].

"I don't get the impression we're peacekeeping here," he tells me with a polite smile. "The contacts are very tough... we are definitely not on a peacekeeping mission.

I don't get the impression we're peacekeeping here

Col Nicolas Le Nen
27th Regiment de Chasseurs

"We are also in the east to show to our allies that France is also in the front line against the insurgents," he adds.

Difficult dilemma

France only really woke up to the fact that it was engaged in a real war in Afghanistan when 10 of its soldiers were killed and 21 others injured in an ambush last August [more here].

At that point, more than half of France's population said the troops should be brought home, according to nationwide opinion polls.

But President Sarkozy insists France will remain in Afghanistan until the end...

Changing priorities

For now, Paris is resisting US requests to send more troops but momentum on the ground is building too.

"I think France has to send more soldiers," 19-year-old Private Beranger tells me as he stands guard high up in the mountains, training his binoculars on the rocky valleys below.

"Afghanistan is a big country and there are Taleban all around. America sends a lot of soldiers - and France has to do the same."

America sends a lot of soldiers - and France has to do the same

Pte Beranger

France's armed forces are still among the strongest in Western Europe, but over the past year the army has been downsized considerably and hundreds of soldiers have been withdrawn from traditional French posts in Africa.

The government believes military priorities have changed and the greatest threat facing France today is a terrorist attack. Mr Sarkozy says that fighting terrorism on the other side of the world helps keep it from your own doorstep...

Up in the mountains again, I ask Pte Beranger if he thinks France will win this so-called "war on terror".

"In Afghanistan?" he asks. "Really I don't know… It's a dangerous area, a difficult country."

"It will be very long, it will be very long to win the war."