French President Emmanuel Macron has detailed plans for a major boost to the armed forces, to meet modern threats including Russia's war in Ukraine.

The next seven-year budget would increase to €413bn (£360bn) from 2024-30, up from €295bn, he said.

First France had to repair and restock its armed forces, then transform them, he told soldiers at Mont-de-Marsan airbase in south-west France.

"We must not do the same with more, we have to do better and differently."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has prompted Western countries to review military spending - and in many cases, increase it significantly.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has outlined plans to increase the number of combat soldiers from 1.15 million to 1.5 million. President Vladimir Putin said this week that Russia's powerful defence industry left him in no doubt that victory in Ukraine was assured.

President Macron acknowledged on Friday there were no more post-Cold War "peace dividends" now that Russia had invaded Ukraine, so the aim was to renew a military that protected France's freedom, security, prosperity and place in the world.

Key to his reforms are a 60% hike in the military intelligence budget, adapting to "high-intensity" conflict with investment in drones, cyber-defence and improved air defences.

"We need to be one war ahead," he warned. 

France's failure to foresee the Russian invasion last February cost the head of military intelligence, Gen Eric Vidaud, his job. The armed forces chief admitted at the time that US and UK intelligence had read the situation correctly.

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IT WAS NOT AN "INVASION", BUT A NECESSARY RESET AGAINST THE BULLSHIT MERKEL AND HOLLANDE HAD PEDDLED IN REGARD TO THE MINSK AGREEMENTS.

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RT’s French subsidiary will cease broadcasting after its accounts were frozen by the French treasury, its director, Xenia Fedorova, announced on Saturday. Paris claimed that it froze the funds in line with EU sanctions, which targeted RT’s parent company.

"After five years of harassment, the authorities in power have achieved their goal: the closure of RT France,"Fedorova said in a statement shared on Twitter. Earlier this week, Fedorova said that she had received a letter from RT France’s bank indicating that the network’s funds had been frozen at the request of the French treasury, rendering it impossible for the outlet to pay its staff.

"Although RT France is not on the sanctions list and has the right to operate in France, such a decision practically paralyzes our activities,” she said at the time.

The French Finance Ministry told AFP that RT France’s assets had been frozen in compliance with the most recent EU sanctions package, and not on the government’s initiative.

The sanctions package – the ninth imposed on Moscow following the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine last February – was announced by the EU last month. It blacklisted RT’s parent company, TV-Novosti, as well as a number of domestic Russian TV networks.

RT France had been forbidden from broadcasting in the EU since July, after the European Court of Justice upheld a ban imposed by EU authorities in March. However, it continued broadcasting online until its accounts were targeted. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the ban as “concerning and regrettable,” telling reporters that “the Europeans are stamping out the same ideals they’re imposing across the globe.”

A source within the Russian Foreign Ministry told the RIA Novosti and TASS news agencies on Saturday that Moscow would respond in kind to the treasury’s decision. “The blocking of RT France’s accounts will lead to retaliatory measures against French media in Russia,” the source said, adding: “The measures will be such that they will never forget them.”

RT has attracted controversy in the EU since before the conflict in Ukraine, with German regulators banning its German-language channel at the beginning of February 2022. Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded by withdrawing the press accreditation of German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and listing the network as a foreign agent.

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