French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin has announced a €36 billion ($42 billion) increase to the defence budget over the next 4 years, as part of a revision to the military programming law.

By 2027, the revised annual budget will stand at €63.3 billion ($74 billion), with a projected figure of €76.3 billion ($89.1 billion) by the end of the decade. This increase will bring the French defence budget to 2.6% of national GDP — still short of the 3.5% annual target by 2035 agreed at the last NATO summit.

The principal project set to benefit from this increase is the new "intermediate" tank, intended to bridge the capability gap between the current LECLERC tanks — due to remain in service until 2040 — and the future Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS). This is no negligible gap, given the uncertain future of the MGCS and the absence of agreement within the KNDS joint venture (Germany's Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and France's Nexter) regarding the platform and its turret.

The other main programmes Paris intends to fund include:

 - the strengthening of space-based ISR (€3.9 billion);

 - an increase in reserve personnel to 50,000 units, bringing the total trained force to 330,000 effectives by the end of the decade;

 - the enhancement of deep-strike capabilities, with the acquisition of drones and missiles (€8.5 billion), with an expected 400% growth;

 - the build-up of ammunition stockpiles, SCALP missiles, torpedoes, and SAMs;

 - the acquisition of C-UAV systems, including "jamming rifles up to truck-mounted cannons with laser-guided rockets" (€1.6 billion).

On this last point, the French DGA has highlighted its dissatisfaction with current counter-drone technologies, describing them as "insufficient, too costly, and ill-suited to future threats." Paris's frustration stems from the conviction that "our Armed Forces must be able to respond to a large-scale engagement within a timeframe that none of us can predict," as stated by Minister Vautrin herself.

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