In the overheated and teeming corridors of the Eurosatory global arms fair, three regional presidents displayed a common ambition this Wednesday: to strengthen French industrial sovereignty in matters of defense. Alain Rousset (Nouvelle-Aquitaine), Carole Delga (Occitanie) and Loïg Chesnais-Girard (Brittany) announced the creation of an inter-regional fund intended to support strategic SMEs and mid-sized companies in the sector.
The observation underlying this initiative is simple. The geopolitical context is deteriorating and we must react quickly. Indeed, the war in Ukraine has brought military issues on the old Continent back to the forefront, while certain allies such as the United States are less and less reliable. In this context, France must quickly strengthen its defense industry. This involves investing more to modernize production tools and allow companies in the sector to accelerate their production rates.
“Show that we are there”
“The Brittany Region has a very old relationship with the naval defense and even cyber sectors, which we have actively supported for more than ten years,” underlined Loïg Chesnais-Girard. The president of the Brittany Region recalls that hundreds of companies in the region are developing today at the crossroads of civil and military uses, participating directly in the reindustrialization effort. “We need to show that we are there, both in the political signal and in the actions,” insists the Breton president. “Unlike the national level, the regions have the capacity to agree on the essentials,” says Alain Rousset, president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The objective is to support companies in the defense industrial and technological base (BITD), which has 13,000 companies in these three regions. “We have noticed that one of the problems of our SMEs is equity. We ask them to invest: the idea is therefore to create a fund,” he explains.
Endowed with 100 million euros initially, this could reach up to 150 million euros in order to support the rise in power of the defense apparatus. The regions are now expecting co-investments, part of which could come from Bpifrance.
