Defense Analysis Army budgets and defense effort Arms exports

Recovery plan: the missed opportunity for the French authorities for its defense industry and its armies

September 9, 2020

On September 3, 2020, the French government presented its Recovery Plan to address the economic consequences of the COVID19 crisis, which has hit businesses and jobs hard in the country. If the majority of industrial and economic sectors are indeed endowed to try to preserve what can be preserved, and transform what should be, no announcements were made regarding the National Defense industry, yet the most efficient State investment in terms of job creation and budgetary return for the State. When questioned on the subject, the French authorities considered that the investment plan resulting from the current Military Planning Law already constituted major support for this sector granted by the State.

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If, from a political point of view, this speech does indeed make sense, the National Defense Industry being one of the main beneficiaries of the Defense spending increase plan enacted by the Military Programming Law 2019-2025, with a global envelope that will have increased by almost € 20 billion over the entire period, it is nonetheless true that this is a real missed opportunity for the government to redirect certain credits towards industrial programs and structuring for the whole country, as can be the major defense programs. This is how the massive French investments to set up national deterrence in the 60s and 70s, particularly around the Le Redoutable class of nuclear submarines launching the vehicle, conditioned the technologies which made it possible to give birth to the program. space, which gave France a key role in civil aeronautics, and even which allowed to propel the first TGV.