Bloomberg.com: France's Segolene Royal Pledges to Maintain Defense Spending - by Gregory Viscusi
Bloomberg.com: GermanyFrance's Segolene Royal Pledges to Maintain Defense Spending - by Gregory Viscusi
Segolene Royal, the French Socialist candidate for president, pledged to maintain defense spending and nuclear weapons, a rare moment of agreement with her main electoral rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. In a speech last night in Paris in front of three former defense ministers, she said military spending should be kept at least at 2 percent of gross domestic product, the same figure mentioned in a speech by Sarkozy last week.
Defense spending ``may seem an excessive effort when we have peace on our borders,'' she said. ``But menaces haven't gone away, they've just changed. It's the price of our liberty.''
