85 years ago, on June 18, 1940, France, beaten militarily, was called by General de Gaulle to a start. We need the same call to stop our economic and military downgrading, which shows that we have emerged from the five major military powers under the Cold War, to fall to the eighth place in terms of budget, and 11e Place behind Italy, Pakistan or even South Korea, if we take into account the power index calculated by the GlobalfirePower on the basis of 60 criteria(1).
If France wants to regain its place in the concert of nations, it must have assets to make her voice heard. As Bismarck recalled, “Diplomacy without arms is music without instruments”. However, we have the annoying tendency to adopt positions of principle on the international level, without having ways to have them enforce them or at least to be respected. To conduct our own foreign policy, we need military sovereignty, and therefore rearm to have an efficient and modern army.
REarmer: an imperative in the XXIe centralkey
REarmer makes it possible to respond to the codes of our time, more Westphalian centered on the logic of border and power: to be strong enough to dissuade other powers from threatening or attacking us. Because France must face a plurality of threats. First, Islamist terrorism has killed nearly 300 people on our soil since 2013 with the desire to annihilate our country by delivering a war of civilizations.
Then, if nuclear deterrence annihilates the existential risk that Russia could represent, it no longer necessarily protects from the return of high intensity wars. Finally, “nations-employment” such as Iran or Turkey use all conventional (military, legal, diplomatic) and unconventional (interference, religious, psychological) means to destabilize our country or our interestts.
Our military doctrine, based essentially on nuclear deterrence, is outdated in the face of nations that challenge us
France cannot be satisfied with an attitude purelyFensive. C‘is why our military doctrine based mainly on nuclear deterrence (13 % of defense spending, or 6.9 billion euros per year) is obsolete. Faced with the nations that challenge us, it is our projection capacity that will make the voice of France credible. Indeed, our status of power power in the world order and our important exclusive economic zone (the second larger in the world) make us have interestTS StratAexes on a world level both to the east (Eastern Europe), in the south (Sahel and sub -Saharan Africa) and in strategic areas, such as Indopacific. However, recent conflicts in Ukraine, in the China Sea or even in Africa show that attacked countries are those which do not have a military force capable of projecting themselves quickly, far and durably, is in itself a form of decline.
Rearmament as a collective company project
Military sovereignty is not just a budgetary position, it is a condition for the sovereignty of a nation, namely its freedom. Socialbeen French, like the rest of the Western companies, lacks a collective project. Our societies are deconstructed by the triumph of individualism, the destruction of intermediate structures which gave meaning to individuals and communities (nation, family, church), and the victory of the ideologies of deconstruction (wokism, ecologism, indigenism, etc.). Rearmament should not be limited simply to a reconstruction of capacitysstery, but constitutes a break with these dogmas.
France must embrace its role as political, diplomatic and military leader in Europe
In order to embark the whole society, the rearmament must bebe -taughté to a vision of the role of France in the world. France cannot run all hares at the same time: it must reaffirm its strategic identity. Thus, France must embrace its role as political, diplomatic and military leader in Europe.
FROW POLICYre amErican will not evolve significantly on the bottom, mixedI after meès Donald Trump. In addition, the departure of the UE of the United Kingdom, backed by the German past, leaves room for our country if we give ourselves the means. Too often, we have given directions or lessons without being effective in our actions to be createdDIBLE.
How to rearm concretely?
REarmer supposes to understand the difficultiess of our armées. France suffers from two gaps: dependence abroad and the sampling of our armies and our defense industry. On the first aspect, nesting in NATO and the export strategy of our defense industry made us have become dependent on the foreigner both on the equipment of our soldiers, the production of most national industrial flagships and the turnover of the BitD (Industrial and Technological Defense Base,, 30 % from exports). This last point makes us dependent on the ability of our leaders to sell contracts. However, when they lose it, as in the case of the submarines Aukus lost by Emmanuel Macron, the whole bitd loses there. On the second aspect, it is the consequence of the reduction of military spending for the benefit of “peace dividends”, passing, from 5.4 % of GDP in 1960, to 1.8 % in 2018.
Only, we have maintained an investment in the five areas of war: the earth, the sea, the sky, the space and the cyber, which prevented usche d‘Be efficient everywhere. Thus, France can carry out a high intensity war on all fronts, but only on a day!
France suffers from two gaps: dependence abroad and the sampling of our armies and our defense industry
It is not enough to decree the rearmament so thatthey‘operates effectively. To rearm, we propose a strategy in two components to overcome dependence abroad and sampling. On the one hand, we must create acosystth favorable to military reset. This goes through three locks to release:
- Financing, by bringing our budgetary efforts to +4 % of GDP, financed to two thirds by cuts in the social model and the expenditure of structure of the State, and to a last third distributed between the savings of the French and the European purchasesENT via a “” Buy European Act ».
- Standards, by recognizing the role of public service to defense companies to exempt them from ESG ethical and environmental criteria, which lock up theaccordto the BitD banking funding, or by creating a reGIME SPE inysaler of town planning and environmental standards “Priority strategic sites” intended for The DEfense.
- Finally on work, by exempting the defense companies of the 35 h in return for a revaluation of employees, a tax exemption from overtime andone allEmage of employer charges on the Daladier’s model in 1938. On the other hand, France must master the innovations of rupture in the defense sector because investing 1 billion euros in the BitD amounts to earn 2 billion euros in 10 years. For this, we must support and protect the innovation of our actors. For champions, by granting them a priority ofaccordat the Crédit-Recherche Credit. For SMEs and ETIs, by a “” sovereign »» in case ofoffer redemption foreign. For start-ups, by a reinforced protective mechanism for “sovereign” patents.
Military reset is a borncessitvital in a world marked by the awakening of the empires, the American withdrawal and the return of conflicts to Europe. If we do not decide our military destiny, others will do it for us and France will be definitively emerging from history. Rearm allows you to have instruments to play our own score on the international scene and weigh in the concert of nations. If we want to continue to play our role in history, we must rearm!
*William Thay is pResident of the Gaullist and independent Think-Tank the millennium, co-author of the report “How to militarily rearm France”
(1) Annual Ranking, Global Firepower (CGF), 2024.
