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French commissioner calls for EU military force
By EUobserver
The messy US pull-out from Afghanistan has shown Europe must build up its own army, EU internal-market commissioner, Thierry Breton, a close ally of French president Emmanuel Macron, has said. Europe needed "a military projection force" capable of "intervening militarily outside our border", he wrote in a blog on Friday, adding: "Europe has always exercised its global influence through its soft power ... this is no longer sufficient".