The Minister of the Armed Forces intends to defend the increase of an additional 3.3 billion euros in the defense budget, provided for in the finance bill whose adoption was prevented by censorship.
The increases in the defense budget provided for by the military programming law (LPM) “are not negotiable”warned the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu on Tuesday, according to whom “the absence to date of a budget for 2025 threatens rearmament” of the country.
Censorship by the previous government had prevented the adoption of the budget, which provided for an additional 3.3 billion euros for the armies to reach 50.5 billion euros excluding pensions, or 2% of GDP.
The LPM 2024-2030 provides 413 billion euros for the armies, with a budget increasing by more than three billion euros each year to meet the growing needs imposed by the multiplication of international tensions.
“I have no doubt that our armies will (…) count on the representatives of the Nation to, when the time comes, take their responsibility and guarantee this rearmament”hoped the minister, during an uprising at the Invalides in Paris.
“It will have to allow the execution of budgetary increase steps (…), which were designed in my mind as a floor, and certainly not as a ceiling. This is not negotiable”.
In the absence of a voted budget for 2025, the ministry has at this stage each month a twelfth of the previous year's budget, therefore threatening investments in future military capabilities, notably the future aircraft carrier.
If the Ministry of the Armed Forces must “also take the pulse of France and the difficulties it is going through”Sébastien Lecornu called for no “not weaken”.
“The threats are accumulating for our security, the crises are accelerating and pose a direct or indirect risk to France and the whole of Europe, sometimes still invisible, sneaky, discreet, hybrid, but nevertheless very real”he stressed.
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