"I don't have the exact figure, which is known to the military (but) there will be about 3,000," he told a news conference during a visit to Tajikistan which borders the war-torn country.

"We're not talking about a unit but about a battalion," he added after meeting with French troops based near the Tajik capital since late 2001 from where they carry out operations in Afghanistan.

While Kouchner said the operations were "putting the lives of our soldiers at risk", he insisted that France would "fight alongside the Afghans...against the extremists".

French President Nicolas Sarkozy pledged to send 700 more French military troops to eastern Afghanistan at a NATO summit in Bucharest last week.

About 1,700 are already stationed in the volatile country, backed up by hundreds of marines in the Indian Ocean.

Since their defeat in the US-led invasion in late 2001, the Taliban have been waging an insurgency in Afghanistan that was at its deadliest last year.

A total of about 70,000 international troops, most of them under NATO command, are in Afghanistan to battle the insurgency.

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