The first unit of the NATO force set up to protect the cease-fire observers in Kosovo has arrived in Macedonia.

The thirty French soldiers will be carrying out preparatory work before the arrival of other units.

The fifteen-hundred-strong force should be fully deployed by the end of the year.

Its mission will be to rescue the Kosovo peace monitors if they get into trouble.

Almost half of the troops will be French.

The rest will be from Britain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.