MADRID: NATO's chief said Wednesday he counted on France's support for NATO security operations, after Francois Hollande pledged to pull troops from Afghanistan immediately if he wins the French presidency.

"I'm not going to interfere in any way in the election campaign in France. Having said that, I consider France a strong ally," Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Madrid after meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

"France has always been strongly committed to our security operations and I would expect that to continue to be the case, whoever might be elected on May 6."

Socialist Hollande, favourite to become French president in that second-round vote, has vowed to pull all French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2012, one year earlier than President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan.

The alliance has 130,000 US-led troops, including some 3,300 French, fighting to stabilise Afghanistan against a Taliban insurgency with the aim of handing total command of security operations to Afghan forces by 2014.