I suppose this should surprise me… but it doesn’t:

According to confidential defence documents leaked to the French press, less than half of France’s Leclerc tanks – 142 out of 346 – are operational and even these regularly break down.

Less than half of its Puma helicopters, 37 per cent of its Lynx choppers and 33 per cent of its Super Frelon models – built 40 years ago – are in a fit state to fly, according to documents seen by Le Parisien newspaper.

Two thirds of France’s Mirage F1 reconnaissance jets are unusable at present.

According to army officials, the precarious state of France’s defence equipment almost led to catastrophe in April, when French special forces rescued the passengers and crew of a luxury yacht held by pirates off the Somali coast.

Although ultimately a success, the rescue operation nearly foundered at an early stage, when two of the frigates carrying troops suffered engine failure, and a launch laden with special forces’ equipment sunk under its weight.

Later, an Atlantic 2 jet tracking the pirates above Somali territory suffered engine failure and had to make an emergency landing in Yemen.

“External operations, in the Ivory Coast and Lebanon are a fig leaf: we are able to keep up the pretence but in ten years our defence apparatus will fall apart,” one high-ranking official said.

At this point, I’m not even sure France could hold off Canada if it had to.  Naturally, France has a solution for all of this:

[Sarkozky] will also use the occasion to push for greater military integration in Europe, an issue that France will highlight when it takes over the EU’s six-month rotating presidency in July.

Translation:  Could someone else pay for our military ambitions, s’il vous plait?  Maybe the British, perhaps?

In short, the French decided about forty years ago that it was much more important to provide a comprehensive welfare state than to actually maintain a real military.  The end result, sadly, is a welfare state that can’t reliably provide for the welfare of the people and a military that can barely rescue a couple of people from a ship.

Now we just wait until the barbarians come and seize Paris, all while the people yell “bread and circuses”…

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