German troops will be stationed in France for the first time since World War Two when German forces occupied much of the country, a source said on Monday, a sign of ever closer military ties between the two historic foes.
A battalion of some 450-800 soldiers will probably be stationed near the northeastern city of Strasbourg, but France and Germany are still negotiating over the precise location, the diplomatic source told Reuters.
"The question of whether this will happen has basically been decided, it's now about the 'how' and 'how many' and 'where'," the source said.
Relations between Germany and France used to be bitterly hostile as a result of the 1870 Franco-German conflict and two world wars, but the former enemies now run a bi-national brigade and have shaped the core of Europe's joint defence strategy.
"The prospect of seeing German troops settle in France again regularly makes my grandfather splutter," wrote a French reader on the website of newspaper Liberation when the idea was first floated by President Nicolas Sarkozy last November.
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