The Eurosatory 2026 arms show will be marked by a very strong Ukrainian presence, whose expertise is now widely recognized. For their part, private Israeli companies will only be able to exhibit defense weapons.
Faced with the Russian threat which reveals their flaws, Europeans will come looking for quick solutions at the Eurosatory 2026 exhibition marked by the rise in power of Ukraine and the authorized presence of “defensive” technologies from the Israeli Iron Dome, believes the exhibition commissioner.
The need to “prepare for war” in the face of this risk of an offensive by Russian President Vladimir Putin elsewhere in Europe is what sets the tone for this new edition of the biennial exhibition for defense and security professionals from June 15 to 19 in Villepinte, north of Paris, summarizes the General Charles Beaudouin, former senior official of the French Army.
This meeting is expected to become “the receptacle” of geopolitical tensions and “uninhibited confrontations” while state defense systems “are for the most part unsuitable” for modern conflict, including in France, he believes.
Only Israeli defense weapons will be authorized
If the French government banned Israel’s “offensive” weapons this week from Eurosatory 2026, provoking the anger of Tel Aviv, private Israeli companies will however be able to exhibit “capabilities or building blocks of capabilities relating to ground-to-air defense, anti-missile and anti-ballistic”, underlines the general in an interview.
During the previous edition, in 2024, France had initially decreed a “total” ban on Israeli participation, before the Paris commercial court judged this exclusion “discriminatory” and ordered, in the middle of the show, the reinstatement of the companies concerned.
With their very efficient “Iron Dome” anti-missile defense system which inspires even the United States, the Israelis will therefore be able to promote capabilities “which we have never needed so much” in particular in front of the delegations of Saudi Arabia or the Emirates “which were hit by missiles”.
“Governmental organizations or organizations dependent on the Israeli government are not allowed to have a stand,” specifies Charles Beaudouin.
Around thirty private exhibitors have been warned of the restrictions and will in the end “necessarily” be fewer in number. “If, unfortunately, they do not play the game (…) and the stands are ambiguous, they will never be at the show”, he warns, suggesting new twists and turns around Israeli participation.
80 Ukrainian companies, an “extraordinary” presence
Ukraine, on the other hand, will have the right to show its missile with a range of 3,000 km or a large drone with a range of 1,600 km, from the company Fire Point, “which have done a lot of harm to Russia”.
“This is everything we don’t have in Europe, and it will be a good challenge,” underlines the general.
“Europe is not putting itself in battle order today,” he laments. He evokes the “potential”, relayed by numerous observers and senior French officers, of a “window of opportunity” for Vladimir Putin to launch “an offensive” elsewhere in Europe, as the Ukrainian front stabilizes. “It will be a completely different show than in 2024 when everyone was reassured, Biden was there and the Russians backed away from kyiv.”
“There were 10 Ukrainian companies in 2024. There will be 80, an extraordinary presence,” announces Charles Beaudouin.
“Copy” Ukrainians
“The Ukrainians are so far in advance that we can only copy them,” he adds, recalling that it is “Ukrainian and not American specialists” who were invited to the Gulf countries, targets of Iranian drones.
On the other hand, “there is a feverishness in the States, which today are going to look for the material on the shelf” unlike previous shows focused on “futuristic prospects”, he explains. Another new development revealing a change in perception: “there will be a group of investors and banks” who have long been reluctant to finance defense.
“Today, they understand that the budgets are there” with in particular 36 billion additional euros provided for by the Military Programming Law in France and that the “era of happy modeling is over”, he concludes.
