De enorme omkostninger ved den militære tilstedeværelse i det centralasiatiske land har formentlig gjort udslaget
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced the phased withdrawal of its 4.000 soldiers serving in Afghanistan, BBC online reports Thursday.
A statement said the French would follow the timetable of US withdrawals announced by President Barack Obama.
Mr Obama said 10.000 US troops would pull out this year, with another 23.000 leaving by the end of September 2012.
At least 68.000 US troops will remain in the country after the 33.000 have been withdrawn, but they are scheduled to leave by 2013, provided that Afghan forces are ready to take over security.
However the US reductions just announced are larger and faster than military commanders had advised.
They told the president that the recent security gains were fragile and reversible, and had urged him to keep troop numbers high until 2013.
The enormous cost of the deployment – currently more than 2 billion US dollar (10 milliarder DKR)) a week – has attracted criticism from Congressional leaders, while the public are weary of a war that seems to have no end and has left at least 1.500 personnel dead and 12.000 wounded.
There have also been changes on the ground, notably the killing in May of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden by US forces in Pakistan.
