As war hits Europe again since last February, President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that the French defense industry had to learn to “produce more” and “faster”, saying he wanted to “learn the lessons of the war in Ukraine” in the next military programming law.
“We were used to producing high innovation, with very long-term programs”, which is “a strength” for the French army and its “exports”, underlined Emmanuel Macron during a press conference in sidelines of the NATO summit in Madrid. But in view of what is happening in Ukraine, “we must now, entering a period of war, know how to produce certain types of equipment faster, stronger. It is a profound reorganization,” he continued.
50 billion euros budget for the Armies in 2025
According to the Head of State, this adaptation of the French industrial model will be one of the challenges of the mission entrusted to the Minister for the Armed Forces and the Chief of the Defense Staff, whom he asked in mid-June to reassess the military programming law (LPM) 2019-2025. “We cannot say that there is a return to war in Europe, and continue to have the same budget programming law”, defended Emmanuel Macron, judging it necessary to “learn the lessons” of the conflict “on the organization of our armed forces” and on “the defense industry”.
Emmanuel Macron began in 2017 a marked increase in credits dedicated to defense after years of scarcity. The budget of the Ministry of the Armed Forces will thus grow by three billion euros per year between now and 2025, to reach 50 billion in 2025. At this stage, the Head of State has not mentioned an additional budgetary effort. “Beyond the question of the quantity of means”, it is a question of saying “where exactly we want to put the means”, explained in mid-June the Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu.