Exports are essential to ensure the viability of the French defense industry, French orders alone being insufficient.
A Barracuda submarine of the French navy in Toulon, November 6, 2020. (AFP / NICOLAS TUCAT)
France exported “more than 18 billion euros” last year, making 2024 “the second best year in our history”, said Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu on Tuesday January 7. Of this total, “nearly 10 billion concern flagship platforms like the Rafale and submarines,” he said.
Twelve units of the Rafale combat aircraft were sold to Serbia at the end of August, while Indonesia formalized in January the last tranche of 18 aircraft out of the 42 ordered two years earlier. Naval Group for its part formalized on September 30 the sale to the Netherlands of four Barracuda submarines. The amount of the contract was not revealed but Christophe van der Maat, then Dutch Secretary of State for Defense, told the
AFP
in March that the project budget was 5.6 billion euros.
With more than 18 billion euros in orders,
the year 2024 remains far from the record level of 27 billion collected in 2022
thanks to a contract for 80 Rafale aircraft with the United Arab Emirates for a little more than 16 billion euros, but well beyond the 8.2 billion for 2023.
Trade balance, sovereignty, jobs
Global military spending in 2023 saw its largest increase in a decade, reaching $2.4 trillion due to ongoing conflicts, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
“The year 2025 is shaping up to be an excellent year, which is off to a promising start with
the sale of 14 Caracal helicopters to Iraq
“, also affirmed Sébastien Lecornu. This year “should be another record year”, he hoped, citing the main equipment of the French defense industry: defense and intervention frigates, submarines, radars, artillery, helicopters, Rafale and even new generation SAMP/T anti-aircraft systems.
While the French defense industry must quickly increase its production rates to meet demand, exports are essential to ensure the viability of the economic model,
French orders alone being insufficient.
“Exporting our weapons is vital for developing our industrial and technological defense base. It is just as vital for our trade balance and for creating jobs throughout France. But it is also a condition of our sovereignty,” insisted the minister.
