Secret Defense
How many will there be tomorrow? Unlike his predecessors who were willing to show a bit of transparency, the current President of the Republic now imposes defense secrecy. He also did not elaborate on the financing of his decision. “Since the beginning of the Fifth Republic, military programming laws (LPM), regularly reviewed, plan the needs over a long period, the development cycles of materials being long and costly, starting in nuclear,” explains Julien Malizard, economist at the IHEDN (Institute of Higher Studies of National Defense). And every year, the Defense budget is voted on by Parliament based on the objectives of the current LPM.
If between 1984 and 2014, no LPM was fully respected, that is no longer the case now. The latest one, covering 2024-2030, provided for 413 billion euros of total spending with annual budget increases (military jargon calls it a “march”) ranging between +3 and +3.5 billion. But, in recent months, Emmanuel Macron has demanded an additional effort of 36 billion spread between 2026 and 2030 to accelerate rearmament.
An update of the LPM is planned for this year with an increase in these annual “marches”. It is within this envelope called the “surmarche” that funding is planned to manufacture new nuclear warheads. However, there are still several unknowns: having more warheads raises the question of the missiles they are equipped with, even submarines and fighter-bombers that are meant to launch them. Will more be needed? Moreover, will the expenses for conventional weapons not suffer from this boost given to nuclear? The Ministry of the Armed Forces assures that they will not. However, the military has not yet answered the million-dollar question: where will the money come from?
