The French army must choose its new rocket launchers by the summer between national solutions (Safran-MBDA and Thales-ArianeGroup) and the American Himars offer from Lockheed Martin. A dilemma between industrial sovereignty and operational imperatives which crystallizes tensions around French strategic autonomy.
The French army faces the challenge of renewing its rocket launchers
France today finds itself at the crossroads of a strategic dilemma whose implications go far beyond the simple framework of military equipment. The renewal of itsunit rocket launchers(LRU), derived from an American Lockheed Martin system capable of striking up to 70 kilometers, conditions the future of French industrial sovereignty and, beyond that, the credibility of European strategic autonomy. This equipment will reach the end of its life by 2027, and the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) must decide by the summer between two competing national offers and the proven American solution: Lockheed Martin’s Himars. A choice under tension, revealing the contradictions between sovereignist ambitions and immediate operational constraints.
The FLP-T (Long Range Land Strike) program, launched in 2023 by theDGAcrystallizes precisely these tensions. The feedback from the Ukrainian conflict provided a clear demonstration of the importance of these artillery systems in high-intensity engagements, giving this decision an urgency that no one, in the general staffs or in the corridors of power, can ignore.
Why renew the French arsenal?
The urgency of replacingrocket launcherThe Frenchman suffers no procrastination. The current systems, a modernized version of a Lockheed Martin model, are showing worrying aging. According to military experts, the number of systems still operational in the French arsenal will become obsolete within three years, digging a “capability hole” with formidable consequences for thearmés.
The war in Ukraine has, at the same time, profoundly changed the doctrines for the use of artillery. The parts must now be able to “deliver fire and quickly change position”, according to Safran, to escape the omnipresent threat of opposing drones. This new battlefield reality imposes reinforced technical requirements in terms of mobility, stealth and electronic protection – criteria which now guide all industrial responses to the French call for tenders.
French solutions in competition
Two French consortia are fighting over thismarché with considerable stakes. The Safran-MBDA tandem opened hostilities on April 29 with the successful demonstration of its Thundart system – an “all-road” launcher truck carrying eight rockets, capable of reaching 80 km/h and designed around the “shoot and scoot” tactic: shoot, then stall before the adversary can retaliate. With this demonstrator, MBDA and Safran have taken a decisive step towards French sovereignty in terms of long-range strikes.
A week later, Thales and ArianeGroup responded with their own demonstrator, highlighting a range that could extend up to 2,500 kilometers – a performance that places their solution in a quasi-ballistic category. Vincent Pery, director of defense programs at ArianeGroup, underlines “the ability to deliver quickly and to ramp up” as distinctive assets of their offer. These technical characteristics place all of them.offersFrench companies in a range of performances comparable to the best international standards, or even superior on certain criteria.
From an industrial point of view, a choice in favor of one or the other of these national solutions would represent a major injection into the French defense sectors, preserving rare know-how and consolidating the position of French groups on export markets. This is precisely the argument that supporters of national preference vigorously defend.
The American Himars offer: attraction and controversies
The emergence of Lockheed Martin in this competition caused a real earthquake in French political and industrial circles. The American offers hisrocket launcher Himars, already adopted by a dozen countries – United States, Poland, Canada, Australia, Italy, Sweden, Singapore, Romania, among others. This “off the shelf” solution has the theoretical advantage of immediate availability and maximum interoperability within the Atlantic alliance According to Challenges, the American offer is even qualified by some observers as “the least bad option” in the face of the calendar uncertainties of national programs.
Nevertheless, this proposal arouses deep reluctance within the French establishment. Senator Cédric Perrin, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces, describes a possible American choice as “casus belli”. Its central fear is clear: by opting for Himars, France would find itself obliged to “request authorization from the American Congress before striking” – a political constraint that is difficult to reconcile with the doctrine of freedom of action that France has claimed since de Gaulle. In a geopolitical context where Washington reveals more in addition to clearly its own strategic priorities, this operational dependence could prove paralyzing at the worst moment.
Sovereignty issues facing operational imperatives
The Minister of the Armed Forces Catherine Vautrin defined three decision-making criteria: “the effectiveness that will be demonstrated to us, the price and the capacity to deliver them”. This deliberately pragmatic approach collides head-on with the ambitions of “European preference” that Emmanuel Macron has established in principle for military acquisitions. The hiatus between speeches and actions is cruelly exposed.
