France to raise military spending to $75B in 2027, three years earlier than planned

PARIS — France plans to speed up its defense spending and will now hit a planned defense budget of €64 billion ($74.8 billion) by 2027, instead of 2030, President Emmanuel Macron has announced.

Macron specified that the 2026 budget, which had been planned at €57.5 billion, would be boosted by an extra €3.5 billion before the big €64 billion spend takes place in 2027, three years earlier than had been planned.

The move would represent a full doubling of the nation’s defense spending since 2017, when the defense spend was €32 billion. The announcement came during Macron’s traditional speech to the armed forces on July 13th, the eve of the nation’s Bastille Day celebrations.

The French president stressed that this rearmament would not raise the country’s debt which, at 113 percent of GDP in 2024, is the third highest in the European Union trailing just behind Greece and Italy, saying, “Our military independence is inseparable from our financial independence. So it will be financed by more activity and more production.” (Prime Minister François Bayrou is due to announce on July 15 details of how this defense budget rise will be financed.)

Macron also said the country’s defense industries “will need to bear this patriotism side-by-side with our armies.” In other words, “they will have to produce more, faster, and cheaper.” At the same time, he stressed that “they will continue to privilege our territories for their new capacities and new production sites,” ensuring the investment the government is making will return to the French by providing jobs locally.

Filling capability gaps will be the priority: “We must toughen the model, gain in mass,” Macron said. He noted in particular that stocks of munitions, notably remotely-guided ones, needed to be more robust.

“We must reinforce our weapons of saturation and our precision weapons, we must have even more drones for our combat groups, our frigates and our air-bases, (…), we must strengthen our air defense and our means of undertaking electronic warfare, we must raise our space capabilities, push our soldiers’, sailors’ and aviators’ training as hard as we can and develop our reserve forces,” he added.

The rise, Macron said, was necessary because “let’s be clear, us Europeans must now ensure our security ourselves,” a not-particularly veiled nod towards current relations between Europe and Washington.

“To be free in this world, one needs to be feared,” Macron said. “And to be feared one must be powerful.”

Macron noted that “every French person and all civilians must be more conscious of the hybrid threats which surround us,” and that the threats are multiform: terrorism, organized crime, satellite jamming and spying, deep-sea cables sectioned and disasters due to climate change. And of course, “the permanence of a Russian threat at Europe’s borders from the Caucasus to the Arctic. A threat that is prepared, organized, durable and that we must be able to handle. Our European future is determined by that and the necessity for us to organize our response to this threat and to dissuade it in order to maintain peace.”

Rare Commentary From Top Officer

Macron’s comments came two days after a rare press conference by Chief of the Defense Staff General Thierry Burkhard, the first such event since 2011. That’s no surprise, Macron said, as he revealed he specifically requested Burkhard hold the presser as part of this effort to ensure the French understand the threats facing the nation.

In his July 11 comments, Burkhard concentrated his message on the threat posed by Russia, “which is really developing a capacity for creating trouble which it does very, very well” and “which has openly designated France as its primary adversary in Europe.”

He explained that Russia is a model “to its fingertips” of the complete army. “I don’t see any capabilities missing in the Russian army of today: jamming, electronic warfare, ground-to-air defense systems, artillery. These conventional systems are well meshed with information warfare. The ability to put them all into play and to do so efficiently is perhaps another subject but globally, on paper, the Russian army has everything it needs.”

Burkhard added that Russia’s nuclear strike capacity on land, undersea and in the air with strategic and tactical weapons had an “extremely robust and tested command chain and doctrine of use.” He also stressed that the Russian people were indoctrinated ‘from a very young age” and are “capable of enduring hardships.”

Burkhard added that “if the end of the conflict in Ukraine is a Russian victory and a Ukrainian defeat, then it will also be a European defeat.” He explained that the objective of Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin, in Ukraine “is to dismantle NATO” but “I am not worried that the United States will make a complete withdrawal. It’s not in their interest.” But, he stressed, there is a necessity for Europe to raise its capacity to defend itself.

And a first step towards this is the  Coalition of the Willing, announced last March by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Macron. Thirty European countries have signed up “to ensure that if there is a cease-fire we can ensure that it lasts.” But, he said, “if there is a ceasefire there will be 1,200km (746 miles) front so I don’t know how things will pan out; it won’t be totally clear instantaneously of that I’m sure and certain.”

But, he stressed that “what is extremely important is that around this Franco-British lead there are 30 countries which have come together with no implication whatsoever from the Americans.”