During the presentation of the “MERCATOR” plan, governing the evolution of the French Navy until 2030, the Chief of Staff of the French Navy, Admiral Prazuck, implicitly confirmed a fear that had been circulating for several years . Indeed, with the errors of the BATSIMAR plan, supposed to replace the Royal Avisos and patrol boats, all of these ships will, in the future, be qualified as patrol boats, effectively eliminating the combat dimension of the buildings. There is therefore no question of replacing the 17 avisos of the Estienne D'Orves A69 class, reclassified as offshore patrol vessels in 2000 after the sale of 6 examples to the Turkish Navy. Even offshore patrol boats do not, in fact, have any anti-submarine or anti-ship capabilities like the A69s, nor any anti-aircraft self-defense capability. They are armed public service vessels, not warships.
As if that were not enough, the document mentions the disappearance of “second-rate frigates”, represented today by the 5 light stealth frigates of the LaFayette class. However, these 5 vessels of the French Navy represent an important asset, allowing the Navy to send a significant warship into tense areas, without having to dedicate one of its precious and rare 1-pound frigates there.errank, whose role (and number) is above all to escort the Navy's force projection ships, its nuclear aircraft carrier and its 3 Projection and Command ships.
In any case, the format of the French high seas combat fleet will therefore experience a contraction of 25% between 2025 and 2030, going from 20 to 15 ships, and its corvette fleet will have completely disappeared. Paradoxically, in terms of tonnage, the difference should be small, since the Navy should receive 4 Volcano Tanker Refuelers to replace its 3 Supply and Command Buildings. For a nation aiming to be oriented towards the sea, or overseas as it is customary to say, and having the 2nd EEZ in the world, these figures are extremely contradictory.
Beyond the purely operational aspects which are already very worrying, another parameter must be taken into account, which opposes President Macron's desire for strategic autonomy. Indeed, the Navy's new format will only make it possible to order, over time, 2 surface combatant ships per 3 years, on average. Above all, with the 8 FREMMs and the 5 FTIs which will be less than 15 years old, the Naval Group projects will have to be limited to the construction of the 6 new surveillance frigates and the replacement of the 2 Horizons over the 20 years from 2030 to 2050. Needless to say, this volume of domestic orders signals the death sentence for the Naval Group site in Lorient.
Because, in fact, where DNCS had compensated for the weakness of domestic orders from 1990 to 2010 with numerous exports, the situation is quite different in 2018, and even more so in 2030, with the appearance of numerous competing offers in Europe (Spain ) as elsewhere (Turkey, South Korea, South Africa). Added to this is the rise of Chinese offers, offering a very attractive performance/price ratio, and the return of Russia to this market. Finally, from now on, the majority of orders are placed within the framework of local construction and technology transfers, such as the Malaysian and Egyptian Gowind corvettes, or the Indian Scorpène submarines. There is no doubt that, as South Korea recently showed by launching its first locally built AIP submarine, all these countries will try to position themselves in this market by 2030.
The phenomenon is the same today for the Italian Fincantieri, whose government has just announced that it will maintain its defense effort at its current level, less than 1,5% of the country's GDP. In 2030, Fincantieri will have delivered to the Italian Navy its 10 FREMMs and its 8 PPIs, like the Trieste aircraft carrier, and will therefore only have the domestic perspective of replacing the 2 Horizon frigates by 2045, as for France.
This phenomenon was anticipated by the two industrialists, who are trying to ward off fate through a collaboration which, they hope, will make it possible to optimize conversions on export markets, avoiding fratricidal clashes, like the one between the French Naval Group to the German TKMS in Egypt. Because for the latter, the situation is identical to that for the French and German shipyards, with a domestic virtual portfolio over the period 2-2030 limited to 2050 corvettes and, they hope, 4 submarines out of the 3 Type 6 which will have to be replaced from 2014.
The prospects for domestic orders from the 3 largest European shipbuilders would only guarantee the activity of one. Given developments in the external market, the export potential over the same period will not exceed the activity of an actor. In other words, among these 3 industrial giants, each at the heart of an ecosystem of several tens of thousands of jobs, at least one of them will have to disappear in the 20 to 30 years to come. As for the two survivors, nothing guarantees their survival beyond two more decades.
It is probably aware of this situation that the TKMS administration committee decided to detach the activities of the shipyard and design office, so as to be able to respond quickly to a buyout offer.
Industrial consolidation will certainly make it possible to reduce, to a certain extent, developments in the international market, but not to compensate for the major lack of activity in the current economic model. In addition, tensions between the players will increase as financial and industrial difficulties appear.
The governments of the 3 countries would do well to consider the costs induced by the announced disappearance of their industrial know-how, its effects on employment, the obligation to import technologies and buildings in the future, and the abandonment of power and strategic autonomy represented by the few short-term savings hoped for by current industrial and budgetary planning. The Positive Valorization Defense doctrine provides global responses that would allow the 3 shipyards not only to be maintained, but to develop their activity despite new international players, while strengthening European naval power, with a positive budgetary and fiscal balance for the states.