Even before it officially starts, the application of the LPM is threatened by the economic context of the country. Thus, as part of the 2018 amending finance bill, the government decided to include all of the costs in the budget of the Ministry of the Armed Forces. costs related to external and internal operations, while in the 2014-2018 and 2019-2025 military programming laws, this remainder was to be financed by interministerial solidarity.
In the end, the Ministry of the Armed Forces will have lost 404 million Euros in credits, of which 319 will be taken from equipment program credits, causing program and payment delays.
This is a practice that is nothing new, with all governments since the end of the Cold War having resorted to it. But today, the armies are in such a tense situation that the elimination of even 1% of its equipment credits poses significant problems, in particular by having repercussions on the extraordinarily high outstanding balance of the ministry. armies, exceeding €50 billion.
If the immediate problem is important, the consequences of such a decision create a disastrous precedent for the application of the LPM in the future. Indeed, if the LPM2019-2025 was hailed for being “ambitious” and “disruptive” during its presentation, its application was, as we knew, more than delicate, and based on hypotheses of growth that the economy French does not seem able, for the moment, to achieve this.
If €400 million seems to have, moreover, a small impact on a budget of €34 billion, it is unfortunately a very harmful warning sign, and perceived as such, both by the military and the industrialists who, both wanted to believe in the full application of the LPM, given the immense difficulties that the French armies face today.
The disappointment and loss of confidence generated could therefore go far beyond the political discontent. On the one hand, it is not through such messages that political authorities will curb the difficulties of recruiting and retaining the armies, widely expressed by the chiefs of staff of the 3 armies this year. On the other hand, industrial recruitment plans, which we have seen if we pay attention to them, are likely to be revised downwards.
Indeed, 319 million Euros represent 3000 direct jobs for the Defense industry, generating an overall economic bubble of 12.000 jobs. Knowing that an unemployed person costs, on average, 25.000 euros to the State and social partners each year, there are therefore 280 million euros in additional costs that the State will have to face next year, and as much in matter of reducing contributions. Rather than saving 319 million, this approach will, in fact, cost the State 241 million Euros.
The decision to remove the ministerial solidarity clause for the financing of OPEX and OPINT, although it very temporarily resolves the government's budgetary equation, only generates negative aspects, whatever the axis of observation.
It is high time to design the policy of planning and financing of the Defense effort on economic and social bases rather than on budgetary bases, which are only relevant on the Excel sheets which gave birth to them.