Defense industry: insurers on the front line of financing

Faced with new threats, the European defense sector is gearing up. Whether it’s the French Dassault or the German Rheinmetall, orders and site extensions have been multiplying at these defense giants for months, as European authorities call for rearmament. A recent example is the American and Israeli strikes on Iran at the end of February, which oblige France to accelerate the structuring of a military drone manufacturing sector, similar to the Iranian Shahed drones. Led by the General Delegation for Armaments (DGA), the Chorus project involves Renault and Turgis Gaillard and plans to deliver around ten drones to the DGA by summer. Gradually, this movement also affects small businesses at the subcontracting levels of major contractors. “If we do not react quickly and firmly, France will become, technologically, a spectator of a world that will arm itself too quickly for her,” warned Sébastien Lecornu in October 2024, then Minister of Armed Forces. Since then, the former minister has become the tenant of Matignon. His former chief of staff at the time, Patrick Pailloux, took over the DGA in November 2025. As the state’s largest investor with around twenty billion euros in arms purchases annually, the DGA’s mission is to define and provide the equipment…