Faced with the increasing number of incidents involving drones, the French government plans to expand its response capabilities by entrusting new responsibilities to private actors. On Wednesday, April 8, 2026, the Secretary General of Defense and National Security (SGDSN), Nicolas Roche, detailed a major evolution integrated into the update project of the Military Planning Law (LPM) 2024-2030 before the deputies.
Until now, only the armed forces and security forces were authorized to intervene against drones, but their resources are not sufficient to cover all sensitive sites. In a context marked by the democratization of civilian drones, this approach appears insufficient. “The fight against drones must adapt to the evolution of the threat, which is no longer simply constituted by these military-designed drones,” explained Nicolas Roche, mentioning “small drones often sold in commerce [ ] which have caused disruptions in the continuity of essential activities for the nation’s life.”
Many disruptions in 2025
The disruptions observed in 2025 in several European airports illustrate this evolution of the threat. Beyond air infrastructures, sensitive sites such as military bases, energy installations, or penitentiary establishments are regularly overflown, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes intentionally. To address this reality, security agents of vital importance operators (OIV) could be authorized to “implement a certain number of jamming or neutralization devices for drones.”
This new capability will remain strictly regulated. It can only be used in the event of an “imminent threat or due to a ban on overflights for military reasons or public security reasons,” clarified Nicolas Roche, who emphasizes the planned guarantees: agents must be “authorized, trained, and monitored.” An experimentation phase is underway and must continue until the summer in order to “identify innovative technical solutions” to protect permanently the approximately 1,500 sensitive sites identified in France.
