Obama welcomes French bid to rejoin NATO command

WASHINGTON -- France wants back into NATO's decision-making command, and President Obama says that's a good thing.

It was in 1966 when French President Charles de Gaulle pulled his country from the NATO command and evicted all allied troops and bases, including its military headquarters, from his country. That was an effort to assert sovereignty over France's territory.

But now French President Nicolas Sarkozy has submitted a formal request to rejoin the NATO command structure.

Obama said in a statement Saturday that he welcomes Sarkozy's decision to full bring France back into the alliance. It's seen as another move repairing the sometimes rocky relations that America had with Europe during the Bush administration.

French troops have been participating in NATO missions since the mid-1990s, including in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. France is now among the top five contributors to allied military operations and the No. 4 benefactor to alliance budgets for NATO operations.