France sets up ‘urgent’ $9.8B munitions top-up package

BELFAST — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has proposed an €8.5 billion ($9.8 billion) munitions spending plan in a bid to meet “urgent” requirements.

The funding is part of a multiyear package that will cover new orders between this year and 2030, on top of an existing €16 billion munitions budget.

“I want everyone to understand that it is a colossal undertaking,” he told lawmakers during a National Assembly speech on Wednesday, according to an online translation. 

“This updated Military Programming Law [LPM] will thus allocate four times more funding to ammunition than the previous” version, Lecornu added. The LPM [PDF] is a multiyear national defense bill covering weapon system procurements.

He noted that the revised law will be shared with the Council of Ministers on April 8, prepared for debate in the National Assembly during early May, and put before the Senate during the week beginning June 1.

Lecornu said the new munitions effort will focus on ground-based air defense capabilities, early warning systems, drones including interceptor types and counter-drone technology.

Describing how the Ukraine war has demonstrated that a single drone costing a few thousand euros can counter a missile valued at several million, he said that “our entire approach” to weapon acquisition needs to be “rethought.”

Remarking that a number of French companies are capable of producing interceptor drones, Lecornu explained that he will be joined by Catherine Vautrin, France’s armed forces minister, in “the coming weeks” to inaugurate a new production facility “that will churn out thousands of drones per month.” He did not disclose a manufacturer by name.

Paris is also set to launch a new platform dubbed France Munitions to act as a wholesale buyer of weapons for both the French Armed Forces and export customers.

“It will enable bulk orders to be placed with manufacturers, thereby finally accelerating the transformation of industrial production capacity and ultimately increasing munitions production in France,” said Lecornu. He made clear that the initiative will be funded by the state and private investors, who have a “responsibility” to support a national rearmament effort. 

In addition to the munitions spending drive and wholesale purchasing approach, Lecornu also announced a new €300 million dual-use industry plan to speed development of civilian companies investing in defense.

“Ministers will present this plan in detail in the coming days,” said Lecornu, but stressed that “greater support” from the government is needed to help civil manufacturers that are “taking risks” by “relocating production lines for critical components to national defense.”