Quote:
Originally Posted by Exocet25fr
I wrote that basing purely on the Navy, of course ! 
I'm not completly stupid.....  |
Wasn't accusing you of being stupid
The French have a long tradition of being a continental power and I could have put stuff in about the army and air forces which along side the Navy I work with as well.
France has a larger army than the UK, the French army numbers around 115,000 where as the UK only has around 80,000 but traditionally we have always had a smaller army, we also don't have the same number of assets in the army as the French do.
Air Force wise the RAF is larger than the Armee de l'air the RAF totals around 850 aircraft at present while the Armee de l'air numbers around 575, we also have 5th generation aircraft in the inventory where as the French don't, the RAF also operates more larger long range cargo aircraft than France such as the A400m C130 (France also operates these) and the C17
Making the UK airlift capacity larger as a whole.
France maintains a substantial modern and efficient military that is for sure and having worked with them very closely for a long period of time you do get to understand each other quirks and niches, but overall French foreign policy and areas of interest differ greatly from the that of the UK and USA which is why there's such a difference between the two great powers of Europe.
On a side note a great niche of France that the UK does not have is the intelligence gathering ships, the UK relies more heavily on satellites and aircraft for this role.