“To be free, you have to be feared,” insists Macron | EUROtoday

On Jul 13, 2025

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DUrant his conventional speech on the Ministry of the Armed Forces on the eve of July 14, Emmanuel Macron introduced an acceleration of the rise within the price range of the armies, with a doubling of the price range in comparison with 2017 which can now not be reached in 2030 as deliberate however from 2027, on the finish of the president’s second mandate. By bearing in mind inflation, the rise is extra modest – about 40 % and never 100 % – however it’s however a considerable effort.

These bulletins are a part of a means of strengthening the French protection posture, one of the vital readable political axes of Emmanuel Macron since his arrival on the Élysée. Extensions of three.5 billion in 2026 and three billion in 2027 should be voted and financed, reaching 64 billion in 2027, in comparison with the 32.2 billion of the armies price range in 2017.

“If our freedom has a price, here it is”

“This new effort is proportionate, credible, essential,” hammered Emmanuel Macron, believing that it’s “just what we need, but really what we need”, when “our freedom has never been so threatened since 1945”. “To be free, it’s a must to be feared; To be feared, it’s a must to be highly effective, “he summed up, when he had just envisaged a high intensity conflict in Europe” within the 3 or 4 coming years “.

“We refuse that this rearmament goes by debt,” continued the president, according to which the increase “will due to this fact be funded by extra exercise and extra manufacturing”. “I said on March 5 to the French: the homeland needs you. I tell you on this national holiday: it is now, “he added, believing that” if our freedom has a price, here it is “.

Four strategic ideas

The president thus anticipates the debates which can essentially be stormy in Parliament, the place all these bulletins might collapse, in a really tense budgetary context. “I call for national responsibility,” he argued.

Four strategic ideas mix and create an explosive scenario for France and Europe, in line with the Strategic nationwide evaluationa risk evaluation doc commissioned by Emmanuel Macron and printed on July 14. First, the Russian risk is intensifying, whereas Vladimir Putin ranked France as its fundamental enemy in Europe.

Second, the disinhibition of the usage of pressure, which is world and shared, together with by Western and democratic international locations, previously guarantors of a sure restraint. The World Order is shaken, whereas a number of everlasting members of the Security Council are freed day by day from worldwide legislation, threatening the very existence of the UN.

Read too France plans to extend its nuclear arsenalThird, partnerships from the Second World War and the Cold War are crumbling, notably with the American disengagement from Europe. For the outdated continent, which means that it’s pressing to imagine its safety, in a sovereign method, that’s to say with the least of political and technological dependence doable.

Finally, the final rocking, technological revolutions such because the arrival of synthetic intelligence (AI), but additionally dronization, accessible entry to area or quantum, pressure armies – and corporations – to remodel with day by day agility, and now not in giant decadeal applications.

The finish of peace dividends

On March 5, 2025, Emmanuel Macron had already addressed to the French to insist on the rising threats which weigh on the nation. But to arrange public opinion for these new bulletins, the President of the Republic had requested his chief of workers to the armies (CEMA), General Thierry Burkhard, to carry a press convention on Friday July 11 to be able to current the threats that France is confronted.

During this very uncommon train, the legionnaire mentioned that we entered an period the place one disaster now not hunts one other: they coexist. He notably cited a key determine of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which presently lists 130 simultaneous conflicts worldwide, six occasions greater than 25 years in the past. Climate change, insisted CEMA, is a “chaos catalyst”.

The 2019-2025 navy programming legislation (LPM), known as “repair” in line with the Élysée, had made it doable to “upgrade the defense tool” within the wake of the years of price range cuts made for the reason that finish of the Cold War, the well-known peace dividends. The following LPM, protecting the years 2024-2030, is for its half certified as a “projection” legislation, meant to “anticipate, strengthen and transform our armies to adapt them to changes in the world”, nonetheless in line with the Élysée. LPMs with budgets in very robust improve which, distinctive, “were all made to the near Euro,” mentioned the Élysée.

A sequence on the finish of the yr on deterrence

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

Large structuring applications have been undertaken or carried out since 2017. In the terrestrial subject, the Scorpion program permits the renewal of armored automobiles which, for some because the armored entrance automobile (VAB), are or have been older than Emmanuel Macron. In the air, the A330-MRTT provide planes or the A400M transport plane change museum components. On and below the seas, the brand new Barracuda assault nuclear submarines lastly give the navy the means to hold out extra complicated, however essential missions, for instance for the safety of maritime approaches and the credibility of nuclear deterrence.

In the sector of nuclear deterrence, the president introduced on July 13 an vital sequence which can be held “at the end of this year (2025)”, throughout which he’ll speak concerning the end result of a strategic dialogue in progress with European companions.

https://www.lepoint.fr/politique/big-bang-des-armees-pour-etre-libre-il-faut-etre-craint-martele-macron-13-07-2025-2594292_20.php