It is with a massive figure stated in a serious voice that the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron, chose to respond, Friday, January 20, from the air base of Mont-de-Marsan (Landes), to the atmosphere of war, back in Europe since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict. While in the spring the president had decided to hasten the preparation of a new military programming law (LPM), the amount which will finally be allocated to it will reach 413 billion euros over seven years, revealed Emmanuel Macron on the occasion. of his wishes to the armies. An unprecedented sum, made up of as many bets as drastic choices.
“We must have a war in advance (…) draw the consequences of what our era carries in germ”developed in the preamble the Head of State, on a platform flanked by a Rafale and an imposing Mamba ground-to-air defense system, two pieces of equipment deployed on the eastern flank of Europe facing Russia. “One of the pitfalls would be to exhaust oneself by seeking only technological refinement, the other would be not to invest”added in the introduction Mr. Macron, in front of an audience of soldiers, specifying that some of his decisions “start” a change “irreversible”.
With an overall envelope of 413 billion euros, the future LPM, which should cover the period 2024-2030, is proving to be the largest budget ever devoted to the armed forces since the 1960s, when General de Gaulle decided to equip France with nuclear weapons. A symbol widely underlined, this Friday, by the Head of State. The sum corresponds to more than 100 billion additional credits compared to the previous LPM, which was planned for the period 2019-2025 and whose budget was around 300 billion. That’s an increase of about a third.
Concerned that such expenditure may be misunderstood by part of the public at a time when shortcomings in public funding, from schools to hospitals, are fueling social tensions, Mr. Macron aimed hollowly, in his speech , to justify the stakes. “There is no luxury, ease or comfort in this project. There is only what is necessary »assured the Head of State. “At a time when every euro of the French taxpayer must be saved, it was necessary to find the best compromise between a defense to match our ambitions and the essential principle of sobriety. »he added.
A “new model of army”
A military programming law is not, by nature, an exercise in great transparency, a good part of the detail of the budgets envisaged being classified as a defense secret. The words chosen, partly for strategic signaling purposes, therefore matter as much as the reality of the means planned. To listen to the Head of State, it is first of all the strengthening of deterrence ” in specific and evolving conditions” which will concentrate a substantial part of the resources of the future LPM. Until now, the amount allocated to deterrence each year was estimated at 5.6 billion euros.
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