February 5, 200917 yr From DefenseNews France Strikes Deal on NATO Command: Report By agence france-presse Published: 4 Feb 12:13 EST (17:13 GMT) PARIS - France has won U.S. support to take command of two major NATO structures as part of negotiations on its return to the military alliance's integrated command, Le Monde newspaper's Feb. 4 edition said. Under the agreement, one French general would be appointed to head NATO's Allied Command Transformation based in Norfolk, Va., and a general could take over a regional command in Lisbon, the newspaper reported. President Nicolas Sarkozy is expected to announce France's return to NATO's command structure at a summit in Strasbourg in April, reversing Charles de Gaulle's decision to pull out of the alliance in 1966. Sarkozy's office declined to comment on the report on the two command posts. Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed for more cooperation between NATO and the European Union in a joint commentary published in Le Monde. "To our great regret, the strategic partnership between NATO and the EU does not meet our expectations because of lingering disagreements between some nations," they wrote. Sarkozy had made France's return to NATO command conditional on boosting Europe's defence capacities.
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