Saarburg, Germany - The last purely French military unit in Germany will be pulled out by 2010, a senior Paris official said Wednesday in Saarburg, on the German side of the border.

The 200-hectare French base was set up at Saarburg near Trier during the Allied occupation after the Second World War. It is currently home to a French infantry unit of
1,000 soldiers.

Jean-Marie Bockel, a junior defence minister, said the unit would probably move to Strasbourg, France.

In future, the only French troops in Germany will be 2,500 soldiers in the bilingual Franco-German Brigade on a German base at Muellheim in Baden-Wuerttemberg state.

While some Germans see Allied forces as a holdover from the occupation, small towns have seen them as a source of wealth and worry about economic collapse after French, US and British troops leave. (dpa)