The Herstal site, which employed more than 10,000 employees in the mid-1970s, diversified into automobile production at the start of the 20th century.e century, and motorcycles until 1965. Now refocused on small arms, it remains one of the largest arms factories in Europe, with 1,500 employees.
The specificity of the place is that it produces its weapons almost from A to Z. The steel, delivered from Germany, is worked by state-of-the-art machining machines and robotic arms in gigantic workshops. Final assembly, a very manual task, is carried out in another hall, on the tables of specialized operators. A real work of art: certain machine guns, like the M3, are capable of firing more than 1,000 rounds per minute, or 17 per second. “It’s precision mechanics, quite similar to watchmakingexplains Henry de Harenne. When we deliver a weapon, we never know in advance where it will be used: mud, sand, snow… The only thing we are sure of is that it must work. »
In addition to the Belgian army, its historic client, FN Herstal has established itself as one of the major suppliers of weapons to the American army, which it delivers from its powerful subsidiary FN America (600 employees). France is also a loyal customer. The Belgian group equips numerous units of the French forces with its small Minimi machine gun, the MAG 58 and M2 machine guns, or the SCAR-H PR precision rifle, ordered in 2019 in more than 2,600 examples. “In Afghanistan as in the Sahel, the performances of the Minimi and MAG were excellentunderlines General Charles Beaudouin, former deputy chief of staff for plans and programs of the Army. The French forces have a real attachment to FN Herstal products. »
And the partnership between France and the Walloon group should further deepen in the coming months. On May 21, Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu and his Belgian counterpart Ludivine Dedonder launched a Franco-Belgian partnership on small caliber ammunition, which provides for the creation of an ammunition assembly line in France.
Read also“Comitology”, “hierarchical cumbersomeness”: the big pressure from Lecornu at the DGA
“It is thanks to Belgium, to FN Herstal, that France is able to regain production capacity for small caliber ammunition”underlined Sébastien Lecornu in the Belgian newspaper Litter on October 18. Herstal to the aid of Paris? Quite a turnaround: until 1997, FN Herstal was a subsidiary of the French company Giat.
