As the EU faces an increasing number of security challenges, questions have arisen about whether France has the military capabilities to lead joint defense initiatives.
French President Emmanuel Macron has positioned France at the heart of European development initiatives following signs of a settlement between the US and Russia.
As the US reduces its military protections in Europe and Russia, the threat to continental security is rising, the EU is pushing for increased spending and pooling resources for joint defense projects between its members.
But despite Macron’s ambitions, the French army is questionable whether this is the seventh strongest in the world and the best in the EU. Global firepowerthere’s what you need to lead this initiative.
The strength of paper, the lack of reality
Since the 2017 election, Macron has significantly increased his spending on France’s defense.
The country’s 2019-2025 Military Programming Act (LPM) allocated 295 billion euros to defense. The latest 2024-2030 LPM has raised its figure to 41.3 billion euros. This is a 40% increase.
Despite these investments, France is still catching up.
Sen. Cedric Perrin, a Republican member and chairman of the Senate’s Defense Committee, has acknowledged the progress, but said funding remains “inadequate to meet new challenges,” including the full-scale invasion of Russia’s Ukraine in 2022.
According to global firepower, the country’s military consists of around 200,000 active soldiers and 44,000 reserves.
The French Army boasts 225 Leclerc battle tanks and 79 Caesar cannons. The Navy operates nuclear aircraft, four nuclear ballistic missile submarines and 15 frigates, while the Air Force commands 197 fighter jets.
The country also maintains an estimated 290 nuclear warheads as part of its deterrence strategy.
However, some concerns remain. For example, ammunition stockpile is very low.
France’s goal for 2024 was to produce 100,000 155 mm shells per year, the NATO standard shell material used in many field guns and how shells.
This is a significant improvement from 6,000 produced annually between 2012 and 2017. However, France still has a long way to go as Ukrainian forces fire 7,000 shells per day.
Report for 2023 by French House of Representatives It made it clear that stockpiles are the lowest ever and will not last for more than a few weeks in a long-term conflict.
Arms Export Paradox
France has a robust defense industry facility and is the second largest arms exporter in the world. Latest analysis.
However, according to Emmanuel Dupuy, a military analyst and chairman of the Institute for Security (IPSE), it is important to distinguish French soldiers from the military capabilities of the nation.
Dupuy claimed that the French military supply chain was flawed.
“We have become Europe’s leading arms exporter by selling Lafale fighters and Caesar cannons, but we are running out of ammunition as we no longer have the ability to manufacture them in France,” he told Euroneus.
Perin said that while France was making many quality equipment, that doesn’t mean the country bought a lot of such equipment.
“Perhaps we should start with the principle that if we don’t want to supply the materials necessary for our security, we cannot become an export output.”
French military industrial facilities also rely on international suppliers of key materials. For example, French ammunition manufacturers import gunpowder from Australia, according to Dupuy.
Last week, French Minister Sebastian Lecorne and Finance Minister Eric Lombard launched a new gunpowder production line by Eurenco, a powder and explosives company.
The factory produces approximately 1,200 tons of gunpowder pellets per year. Caesar cannon deployed in Ukraineeven among other countries.
What is missing from the French army?
Despite military assets, France is lagging behind in several key areas, experts warned.
“We need to invest in forced projection capabilities, heavy transport aircraft, to deploy large quantities of military and armored vehicles overseas,” Dupuy said.
Another imminent gap includes the development of more drones that have changed the way wars, especially in Ukraine, are fought.
One particular area of concern is surveillance.
According to Dupuy, France must strengthen its ability to detect and respond to threats in real time in the age of cyber warfare and electronic surveillance.
He also said France and its EU allies must be freed from reliance on US-built patriot missile systems.
“We must no longer rely on patriot anti-aircraft systems, and we must develop our own European equivalents,” he explained.
Lack of EU cooperation
French military doctrines have traditionally focused on expeditionary wars rather than on a large scale direct conflict.
Perin said that French troops were established “to intervene anywhere,” but said their “fragmented” nature meant that they were limited in scale.
He argued that France, like other European countries, could only engage in major conflicts “in a coalition of NATO and EU allies.”
However, European cooperation in the arms industry is still ongoing.
Dupuy said the continent must improve interoperability with regard to procurement.
“The different types of equipment within European military forces probably need not be European joint aircraft, rather than competing national projects,” he added.
However, Perin said he was cautiously optimistic about France. New military initiatives.
“We’re heading in the right direction. Now the problem is finding the budget to issue the order,” he said.
The French government is aiming to raise 5 billion euros in additional public and private funding for the defense sector, announced by the Ministry of Finance, which was announced last week.
However, the burden on France’s finances narrows options for promoting defence spending. Macron aims to raise the Army budget from 2% of the country’s GDP to 3-3.5% over the next few years.
