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French President Emmanuel Macron announced this Friday that his country’s defense budget will increase by more than a third for the 2024-2030 period, in an effort to transform the Army with a clear European dimension and prepare it for “multiple” threats. ”.
Macronwho gave a speech at the Mont-de-Marsan air base (south-west), explained that he will ask Parliament for a budget of 400,000 million euros for the next seven years that will cover 413,000 million in needs, compared to the 295,000 million foreseen in the previous military programming law for 2019-2025.
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“Threats are multiple and add to each other”, He underlined before listing various scenarios of tension, such as the eastern Mediterranean, the East China Sea and in particular the war in Ukraine, marked by “brutality”, with scenes that were believed to have disappeared since the two world wars.
Macron He insisted that if the two military programming laws are taken into account, the end result is that the defense budget will “double.”
“After repairing the armies, let’s transform them”pointed out before detailing what this evolution will consist of, which firstly involves the strengthening of nuclear deterrence, which “is an element that makes France a different country in Europe” and whose “vital importance” has been seen with the war in Ukraine.
He advanced that the funds for information and intelligence services will grow “close to 60%” to, among other things, be able to better resist cyber attacks.
He also showed his intention to “double the operational reserve” to be able to feed the military ranks based on the needs and reinforce the special forces.
As regards the material means, he indicated that the Rafale will become the only model in the fighter fleet, which suggests a retirement of the last Mirages.
He also spoke of the “accelerated digitization of the battlefield”; of greater capacities in frigates; the development of the “new generation aircraft carrier”; the doubling of investments in drones or the Future Air Combat System (FCAS) that France has launched together with Germany and Spain.
The French president insisted that his country’s military alliances “They can only be contemplated within the framework of our Europe” and in what France it will have to have the capacity to lead a European operation, “within NATO or outside the alliance”, and be capable of deploying its own force of “up to 20,000 men”.
In a message addressed to the military industries, he said that they will have to “drastically reduce production cycles”, adapt them to their partners and to the conflicts that arise, while offering them visibility on the business for more than a decade.
Macron He stated that he wants the new military programming law that his government is going to present, which he defined as “a national sovereignty project that would not be coherent without its European dimension”, to be adopted by Parliament “by now until the summer”.
Source: Elcomercio
I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.
