The French Defense Minister, Sebastien Lecornu, has reported that he will present this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers the military programming law for the period 2024-2030, which will amount to a total military expenditure of 413,000 million euros. Likewise, in an interview with the newspaper “Le Parisien”, the French minister has given more details about the construction schedule for the new nuclear aircraft carrier: the start of work will be in 2025 and the first tests at sea in 2036-37.
The annual defense budget, which was 32,000 million euros in 2017 (when President Emmanuel Macron came to power), it will rise to 69,000 in 2030, more than double, stressed the Minister of Defense. In 2023, military spending will be 44,000 million. Lecornu justified this strong increase in that it is “the price of security”, because “any naive about the reality of the tightening of security in the world would be guilty”.
According to the EFE agency, the minister also advanced that the priorities of the budget will include the lessons of the war in Ukraine, such as the importance of drones and anti-drone devices. “The threat has become hybrid. Now any isolated individual can detonate a small civilian drone and create a threat,” he stressed.
Thus, Lecornu explained that France will begin construction of a new nuclear aircraft carrier towards the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026 to replace the “Charles de Gaulle” ship. He also asserted that the first sea trials are scheduled for 2036 or 2037 and that it will be able to accommodate the most advanced combat aircraft model that France has, the Rafale, as well as its successor and drones.
The project currently has a budget of 10,000 million euros for a ship of 75,000 tons. Lecornu insisted that only the United States and France have this type of atomic-powered spacecraft.
Lecornu justified the cost at which this type of ship “it ensures our autonomy” to carry out maritime operations “without depending on other powers.”
The French Defense Minister has also announced the forthcoming delivery to Ukraine of a surface-to-air defense system capable of protecting a city the size of Kyiv.
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