Sarkozy: French forces to leave Afghanistan a year early

President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that France would pull its forces out of Afghanistan a year earlier than planned, a week after the killing of four French servicemen by a renegade Afghan soldier. After meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Paris, Sarkozy said France had decided to transfer security in the eastern Kapisa province, where most of the current 3,600-strong French contingent is based and the scene of the shooting, to Afghan forces from March of this year. "The pursuit of the transition and this gradual transfer of combat responsibilities will allow us to plan for a return of all our combat forces by the end of 2013," Sarkozy said, adding that 1,000 French troops would return in 2012. This decision was made "in agreement with president Karzai and in agreement with our allies, in an organised and reasonable way," he said. "A few hundred" French troops would stay on after 2013, to train Afghan troops, Sarkozy said. Sarkozy said he would also encourage NATO to consider handing over all its combat operations to Afghan forces in 2013, ahead of the original schedule of by the end of 2014. Sarkozy said he would "ask NATO to think about the Afghan army taking complete control of NATO combat missions during 2013." French training operations in Afghanistan, suspended after the shooting, would however resume on Saturday, he added. Sarkozy said he would speak to US President Barack Obama on Saturday. "There were some concerns expressed in NATO countries ... as well as in Afghanistan that whatever was done needed to be done in a consultative fashion, needed to be done in a managed fashion," Nuland said. "And what we see now is just that, a consulted and managed effort," she said. "This was a national decision of France. It was done in a managed way. We will all work with it," the spokeswoman said. A NATO spokewoman said only: "We take note of the French statement." Karzai is on a five-day European trip to sign long-term strategic partnership agreements aimed at bolstering support for Afghanistan's reconstruction and development. Karzai was due to travel later Friday to London to meet Prime Minister David Cameron. Most French -- 84 percent of them -- want the troops back home by the end of 2012, according to a CSA opinion poll published this week. Socialist presidential candidate Francois Hollande, who is tipped to beat Sarkozy in elections in three months, pledged Thursday to withdraw French troops from Afghanistan this year if he becomes president. After the deaths of the four soldiers, Sarkozy sent his Defence Minister Gerard Longuet to Kabul to evaluate ways to improve the security of the French troops who are training up the Afghan army. Longuet said he was told the killer was a Taliban infiltrator in the Afghan army, but Afghan security sources said he opened fire because of a video showing US Marines urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban insurgents. The Taliban, usually quick to claim coalition deaths, said they were investigating and suggested some of the many attacks by Afghan soldiers on their foreign counterparts were prompted by anger towards the "invading enemy". The US, Britain, Germany and Italy are the the main contributors to the NATO-led force of some 130,000 troops fighting a 10-year insurgency by hardline Islamist Taliban forces ousted from power after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. A total of 82 French troops have been killed there since the start of their deployment in 2001.