PARIS: In a just released parliamentary report on the true state of the French defence sector, a deputy, Gilbert Meyer, has revealed that fully 40 per cent of the country’s military hardware is in such a state of disrepair that it is virtually unusable.

Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie had gotten wind of the sorry state of French military hardware during a visit to Kosovo shortly after being named to her post, when she came across jeeps and other equipment which were presented to her as being completely unusable for reasons of disrepair and the lack of spare parts — a situation usually associated with the armies of poorer countries.

The report says that the sorry state of equipment is extant in all three branches of the French army, the Marine Nationale (navy), Air Force and land army. In the latter, more than 60 per cent of all its multiple rocket launchers are presently unusable, and cannot be deployed in their present state, says the report, a figure which dropped from an 88 per cent readiness rate only five years ago.

Certain armoured vehicles can no longer be used, it also says, because military officials decided to spend too much on newer kinds of equipment without thinking in terms of assuring a backlog of spare parts or the financing for the maintenance of the still deployable older models.