France's Macron announces multi-year increase in defence spending
The Hindu
"France has and will have armies ready for the challenges of the century."
President Emmanuel Macron on Friday said 400 billion euros ($433.16 billion) would be assigned to France's military budget in 2024-2030, up from 295 billion euros in 2019-2025.
The 2019-2025 defence bill was meant to start building capacities back up after chronic underinvestment in the previous decades, Mr. Macron said.
He branded the new 2024-2030 budget a "transformation" programme to adapt the military to the possibility of high-intensity conflicts, made all the more urgent since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"France has and will have armies ready for the challenges of the century," he said in his New Year address to the army, at the Mont-de-Marsan air base, in southwestern France.
France, he said, had to be ready for a new era, with an accumulation of threats, some, he said, were old wars, others more unprecedented, "between sophistication and brutal simplicity."
