 "Macron speeds up Rafale warplane orders, to invest $1.6 billion into one of France's air bases")
In a significant move to enhance military capabilities, President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to acquire additional Rafale warplanes and invest approximately 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) into one of France’s air bases.
The investment aims to upgrade the country’s squadrons with cutting-edge nuclear missile technology.
The announcement comes as European countries, jolted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the assertive foreign policy of former US President Donald Trump, reevaluate their defence strategies.
Many countries are responding by increasing their defence budgets and reducing their reliance on American military support.
Macron has been a proponent of bolstering France’s military spending throughout his presidency, previously initiating a plan to double the defence budget. Recently, he set a more ambitious target, advocating for defence expenditures to rise to between 3% and 3.5% of the country’s economic output, up from the current 2%.
In addition to these budgetary increases, Macron has offered to extend France’s nuclear deterrent, known as the nuclear umbrella, to other European nations, underscoring France’s commitment to collective security in the region.
“We haven’t waited for 2022 or the turning point we’re seeing right now to discover that the world we live in is ever more dangerous, ever more uncertain, and that it implies to innovate, to bulk up and to become more autonomous,” Reuters quoted Macron as saying to soldiers at one of the country’s historical air bases in Luxeuil, eastern France.
“I will announce in the coming weeks new investments to go further than what was done over the past seven years,” he added.
Macron said he had decided to turn the base, famed in military circles as the home of American volunteer pilots during World War One, into one of its most advanced bases in its nuclear deterrence programme.
The base will host the latest Rafale F5 fighter jets, which will carry France’s next-generation ASN4G hypersonic nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which are intended to be operational from 2035 onwards, French officials said.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsThe French air force will also receive additional Dassault-made Rafale warplanes, in part to replace the Mirage jets France has transferred to Ukraine, Macron said.
“We are going to increase and accelerate our orders for Rafales,” he was quoted as saying.
French officials said the 1.5 billion euros were part of the already approved multi-year military spending plan. It remained unclear how France would finance a massive hike in military spending at a time it is trying to reduce its budget deficit.
Macron’s speech comes on the day the German parliament approved a massive increase in military spending.
With inputs from agencies
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