2023-07-14 05:57:50
The date is symbolic. The seven-year military programming law with the modernization of the armies as a red thread was definitively adopted on the eve of the National Day.
Widely adopted for the second time, Wednesday, in the Assembly, the text was submitted, this Thursday morning, to the final vote of the Senate, which largely approved it by 313 votes against 17.
In this context of international tensions with the war in Ukraine and the requests to NATO member states to devote increased budgets, this military programming law plans to devote 413.3 billion euros to the Armed Forces over seven years from 2024 to 2030. 13.3 billion comes from extra-budgetary resources. A trajectory that will be validated each year in the state budgets.
40% increase compared to the previous law
Compared to the previous programming law, the budget will therefore be up by 40% with the bulk of the expenditure which will take place after 2027, i.e. after the end of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term. However, in the joint committee of deputies and senators, an envelope of 2.3 billion must be released more quickly by 2027.
The LR rapporteur in the Senate Christian Cambon welcomed an “extension”, thanks to “the intervention of the President of the Senate” Gérard Larcher who “contacted the Prime Minister”, according to the senator.
The vote in the Senate of this text was hardly in doubt. At first reading, the upper house was massively in favor of the text (314 votes against 17), only the communist group having voted against and the ecologists having abstained in the majority.
In substance, real doctrinal differences have also erupted between the presidential camp and part of the left on nuclear deterrence, which represents 13% of credits and is sanctuarized as the “base” of national defense, while communists and environmentalists want initiate an exit.
The place of France in NATO also marked the debates. It even divides within the left. The PCF and LFI wishing to leave the integrated command unlike the Socialists.
Taking into account the conflict in Ukraine
Drawing lessons from the conflict in Ukraine, the LPM provides 16 billion euros for ammunition and 5 billion for ground-air defence. However, despite the substantial efforts of 268 billion for equipment, the armies will receive fewer armored vehicles, Rafale or frigates than what was planned in the previous program.
Regarding the workforce, the government is counting on 275,000 full-time military and civilian equivalents in 2030 (excluding reservists). But according to “depending on the reality of the labor market”, the ministry will be able to direct “recruitment” credits towards the loyalty of the troops (bonuses, advantages, etc.).
In addition, the text also provides for investments to modernize the army: 10 billion for innovation, 6 for space, 5 for drones, 4 for cyber and digital.
Finally, this text will clarify the powers of requisition of the State, a subject of concern on social networks. Some see it as a power to requisition “any person” and “all property”. In reality, these possibilities will remain restricted to military defence.
Appeal of the Insoumis before the Constitutional Council
The LFI deputies have announced to seize the Constitutional Council against certain provisions. MP Bastien Lachaud pointed to shortcomings in industrial “independence” or energy transition, but it is not the measures he endorses that they deem unconstitutional.
The Insoumis believe that several amendments they proposed, deemed inadmissible to the Assembly because considered unrelated to the text, were aimed at an ordinance on the functioning of Parliament which could be modified during the examination in the Senate without being raised as inadmissible. They see in it a procedural inequity between the two chambers, leading to insincerity in the parliamentary debate, and call on the Constitutional Council to bring down certain provisions.
In the “Senate, several amendments were declared admissible while amendments modifying the same ordinances were declared inadmissible by the Assembly”, write the deputies in their appeal. According to them, “The President of the National Assembly manifestly disregarded Article 45 of the Constitution, and de facto restricted the right of amendment of parliamentarians, when they entered the field of military programming, such as the upheld the review in the Senate,” they say. The Constitutional Council has one month to rule after a referral, which can be extended to 8 days if the government so requests.
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