France has decided not to send additional troops to Afghanistan in 2011 as US-led soldiers struggle to rein in the nine-year-old war in the country.

"We have a group of around 4,000 soldiers in the field and we do not intend to increase that," AFP quoted French Defense Minister Alain Juppe as saying during his meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Washington on Tuesday. 

Juppe, however, noted that France will continue to redeploy some of its troops from around Sarobi -- located between Kabul and Jalalabad in Kabul Province -- in order to pave the way for handing over the security missions to Afghan forces. 

France has decided not to send additional troops to Afghanistan in 2011 as US-led soldiers struggle to rein in the nine-year-old war in the country.

France has decided not to send additional troops to Afghanistan in 2011 as US-led soldiers struggle to rein in the nine-year-old war in the country.

"We have a group of around 4,000 soldiers in the field and we do not intend to increase that," AFP quoted French Defense Minister Alain Juppe as saying during his meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Washington on Tuesday.

Juppe, however, noted that France will continue to redeploy some of its troops from around Sarobi -- located between Kabul and Jalalabad in Kabul Province -- in order to pave the way for handing over the security missions to Afghan forces. 

15 children held hostage in east France

An armed young man has taken hostage at least 15 children in a primary school in eastern France, a report says.

The 17-year-old man, holding two swords, initially took 20 children hostage when he burst into the school in the city of Besancon but later released five of them, AFP reported on Monday. 

"Around 14 children have come out and at the moment there are still five or six inside," Besancon mayor Jean-Louis Fousseret told French Info radio. 

According to French media reports, the teenager suffers from depression. 

Police have surrounded the school and Education Minister Luc Chatel was on his way to the city, officials said. 

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