France could be pivotal in making Europe’s defense sector autonomous. But the country will have to overcome hurdles — and shouldn’t go it alone, experts warn.
French President was already making the case for what he called “strategic autonomy” back in 2017.
“When it comes to defense, our aim should be for Europe to have the capacity to act autonomously, alongside ,” he said during a Europe speech at Sorbonne University in Paris.
At the time, his appeal fell on deaf ears in the European Union, especially on those of then German Chancellor .
Waking up amid new global realities
Eight years on, the mindset has changed. for three years now. More recently, was elected for a second term as US president. He’s adamant his country should no longer be the
The EU has reacted to the new geopolitical reality by announcing it wants to until 2030 under a program called ReArm Europe.
Several EU countries are planning to increase their national defense spending — including Spain, Italy and France.
Paris’ defense budget of currently roughly €50 billion — about 2% of French gross domestic product (GDP) — is to double by 2030. Economists say that could boost France’s economic growth by up to 1.5%.
Fanny Coulomb, a lecturer at French university Sciences Po in Grenoble, says the country’s 20,000 defense companies employing about 200,000 people are the backbone of the continent’s defense sector.
“France has players in all segments of the sector. We’ve upheld these skills since the 1960s as opposed to some other countries,” Coulomb, who specializes in defense economics, told DW.
“We reduced our expenses after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, but the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the subsequent war on terror reversed that trend,” she explained.
France still has ‘war culture’
Sylvie Matelly, another defense expert, thinks that all of this has contributed to maintaining a certain “war culture” in French society.
“We need to be able to understand the nature of the threat in order to know which weapons are required,” the director of Paris-based think tank Institut Jacques Delors told DW. “Paris has kept up that capacity for military analysis unlike countries such as Germany.”
She also said that France has become a forerunner regarding so-called Systems-of-Systems (SoS) capability, which is a set of unique systems that perform a common mission by combining the synergistic effect of multiple systems,” according to a glossary compiled by the US Defense Acquisition University (DAU) in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Matelly says this includes, for example, high-tech products like the French Rafale fighter jets or the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier.
“Meanwhile, we have drastically reduced our production of light weapons and ammunitions. We thought it’d be easy to kickstart it again, as these products are less complex,” she added.
But there are hurdles to restart, or boost, military production.
“We’ll need large amounts of raw materials which are difficult to source, especially since our sanctions on the important minerals supplier Russia after its invasion of Ukraine,” Coulomb said. “What’s more, we have to urgently train more engineers and specialists, as our industrial sectors have constantly been declining over the past few decades.”
And money might be an issue. France is struggling with high public debt and needs to drastically bring down its deficit, which is predicted to exceed 5% this year.
The government has thus announced it would launch a defense mutual fund through public investment bank Bpifrance. Other financial products are under discussion to capture French citizens’ savings.
More investor interest after Trump’s clash with Zelenskyy
Paris-based agency Defense Angels is meanwhile expecting more influx this year. Since its 2021 launch, the investor network specialized in the defense sector has injected a total of almost €2 million into 23 companies. This year alone, its 90 investors could fund about 30 startups in the sector.
The clash between Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House in late February was a “game-changer,” says Francois Mattens, co-founder and vice president of Defense Angels.
That meeting ended without the planned signing of a raw-materials deal and increased fears the US might stop providing military assistance to Ukraine. Washington’s support resumed after a short break.
Recalling the event, Mattens told DW that many investors “who used to be hesitant have since called me saying they’d like to go ahead with their investment.”
For him, that interest is further proof of the crucial role startups could play.”We need innovation and state of the art technology in the defense sector. Dynamic startups are more fit to yield that than big, inert groups.”
Cailabs can confirm increased investor interest since the clash in the White House.
The Rennes, France-based startup produces laser based devices that provide internet and safe communication lines — rival products to US billionaire Starlink satellite dishes.
“Our installations are less easy to detect as they don’t rely on radio signals. However, they are still too large to be deployed on the frontline,” Cailabs CEO Jean-Francois Morizur told DW.
The company nevertheless makes half of its revenue in the military sector. That share is en route to 80%. “For now, most of our products are sold in the US, but that could soon change, especially when Europe starts to massively invest,” Morizur said
Do the French need to be more modest?
Paris-based Kayrros recently signed its first batch of defense contracts. The startup uses artificial intelligence to analyzes changes in satellite images. These changes could soon include troop movements.
“France will play an important role through its expertise regarding space technology, as it has a mini Silicon Valley and lots of excellent research institutions in that field,” Kayrros co-founder Antoine Halff pointed out to DW.
But all that doesn’t mean France should play a lone hand, experts seem to agree.
And Delphine Deschaux-Dutard, political scientist and deputy director of the Center for Research on International Security and European Cooperation at Grenoble University, is adamant Paris needs to find the right tone.
It should not think France will be the “new global defense leader replacing the US,” she told DW because building up a strong European defense sector was all about cooperation with other countries such as Germany or Italy.
“We need European champions in order to achieve economies of scale. France needs to be diplomatic and not come across as too haughty.”
Edited by: Uwe Hessler
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