We have just published our latest book, this one bringing together our work on Second Line of Defense with regard to the evolution of French defense policy under President Macron during his first term.
Here is what Robbin Laird, the editor of the reader, wrote about the book:
Emmanuel Macron became the President of France on May 14, 2017. He is the youngest President of France in the Fifth Republic and the youngest Head of State in France since Napoleon. The legislative elections following his election were dominated by the party that he established to support his reform agenda and policies.
He represented in this sense the spirit of the founder of the Fifth Republic, General de Gaulle. De Gaulle wished to brake from the traditions of parliamentary dominance in favor of a strong Presidential system. Macron’s election along with the victory of his own generated party certainly represented a shift away from his immediate predecessor Francois Hollande. Under Hollande, the Fifth Republic was dominated by the Socialist Party and was taking on the trappings of the Fourth Republic.
As Alastair Cole put it: “The Macron project is above all a hybrid political and economic project. Macron has set out to reaffirm the centrality of the presidency and rehabilitate the discourse of the State. His presidential practice has renewed with traditional visions of the Fifth Republic, whereby the president is at the heart of a centripetal and hierarchical system.”
In the Fifth Republic, defense and foreign policy are the sectors dominated by the President, and his team. And, Macron has certainly done so. He was elected with a strong emphasis on reform of the French state and society and relaunching France as the leader of Europe.
He became President in a period of significant global change. His focus has been from the outset to reinforce France’s global role and to do so through an expansion of what he refers to as European sovereignty. He has played off global events to provide ways to do so.
With President Trump providing rhetoric that challenged Europe, he could play off that rhetoric to articulate a neo-liberal role for Europe in the global environment. He could also work with Chancellor Merkel to defend Germany from Trump’s frequent attacks on the Chancellor. At the same time, the Trump Administration invested significantly in European defense and reinforced the capabilities for the direct defense of Europe, and France worked closely with the United States where possible and appropriate to enhance France’s role within NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) as well. Trump in many ways provided the foyle necessary for the Macron of the first term; Biden with his ability to not know what country he is in, makes more to be pitied than a strong partner a Macron can spar with.
Regarding the growing global role of China, over the duration of his first terms as president, President Macron increasingly asserted a Pacific role for France. He did so through military exercises, visits and deepening France’s relationship with Australia. Regarding Australia, the program to build new generation diesel submarines which was led by France’s Naval Group was a key part of this approach. The abrupt termination of the program has been a shock to his Pacific approach. The launch of the so-called AUKUS trilateral partnership at the time of the announcement by Australia that they would jettison the French agreement to build a nuclear submarine, has accelerated anti-Anglo-Saxon sentiment in France which has certainly not been helpful for the course set by Macron regarding his global defense policies and approach.
The European sovereignty piece has seen several challenges, which President Macron has played off; he has also generated initiatives. Regarding the UK and BREXIT, the withdrawal of the most important European defense ally of France from the European Union has posed challenges and opportunities. The challenge is to keep the close defense relationship on track, including defense industrial cooperation. The opportunities are generated from the withdrawal of Britain, which gave way to the opportunity to deepen the European Union along French ideas of how to do so.
And, in the defense realm, the defense industrial collaboration side of French policy has been reinforced by a major initiative, the Future Combat Air System. The Future Combat Air System (FCAS) is a core initiative of the Macron Administration for both defense modernization and building out defense cooperation with its core Airbus allies, Germany and Spain. The Administration is committed to the modernization of their core combat fighter aircraft, the Rafale, for the next thirty years. FCAS is designed to deliver a next generation fighter aircraft.
We have published a separate report in 2021 consolidating all the key pieces that we have published on FCAS; too many pieces to include in this book. We can refer our readers to that report. But, in this chapter, we have included highlight pieces that provide for understanding the scope, nature and significance of the program.
This project is designed to replace both the Rafale and the Eurofighter with a “combat cloud” ready aircraft. A “combat cloud” ready aircraft is one that is designed to work interactively with other air assets in delivering the desired combat effects. It is a clear response to what the Macron Administration views as the F-35 challenge to European sovereignty. And indeed, European sovereignty is a key part of the Macron version of Gaullism, much like the General launched the independent nuclear deterrent.
Defense policy is never simply about the external operations of a defense force but are closely integrated with domestic developments as well. With regard to defense policy under Macron, the threats from the Middle East and North Africa, which lead to imported brands of terrorism, or have generated significant migratory pressures are key parts of the evolution of Macron’s defense policies. How to engage in the threats in the immediate vicinity of France with enhanced European collaboration? How to protect French society from importing Islamic terrorists’ threats into a society increasingly populated by Muslims?
During the Macron Presidency, there has been a clear focus on maintaining a balanced force structure, in the face of economic growth challenges and reform efforts. The nuclear force remains a key part of the French policy, but increasingly France is working with the United States, NATO, and its European allies on ways to better integrate French forces into a broader defense set of capabilities. The NATO-Russian war only has accelerated such efforts.
This book provides a detailed look at the evolution of defense capabilities and policies under President Macron during his first term. The essays are drawn from our two key websites Second Line of Defense and Defense.info. For each article that has been published on one of our websites, the date it was published is listed after the author of the article. I have drawn as well from our book published in 2020 by myself and Murielle Delaporte entitled The Return of Direct Defense in Europe: Meeting the 21st Century Authoritarian Challenge. In addition, there is some new material not published earlier on the websites as well.
The last time I published a reader on French defense policy it was at the end of the Cold War. That book was entitled: French Security Policy: From Independence to Interdependence and was published in 1986 by Westview Press. It has been reissued in 2019 by Routledge. Obviously, much has changed since then and this book highlights how the latest French government has reset its defense policy as the Russians are back and the Chinese have stepped up their global game, and the alliance has changed fundamentally. To gain a sense of the change in these periods, one can read the earlier book in conjunction with this one.
This book is organized into seven chapters.
The first chapter provides an overview of the approach of President Macron to defense. It also includes Murielle Delaporte’s chapter from our book on The Return of Direct Defense in Europe and her assessment of the 2021 strategic review published by the French government.
The second chapter provides perspectives on Macron, including comments on his famous 2019 Economist interview.
The third chapter provides detailed examinations of the modernization of French forces under Macron. Many of those efforts are to be done in the future, but the Administration laid down paths toward those future modernizations. The focus in the chapter is upon the French Air Force, Navy, the space force and weapons development.
The fourth chapter focuses on a very central part of French defense policy. France has a strong defense industrial sector but to do so, the French need a robust arms export policy. And increasingly, given the complexity of defense programs, there is a need to return to the earlier roots of significant European defense collaborative programs.
In chapter five, we focus on French policy toward allies. Under President Macron there has been a very active engagement with allies. The United States is certainly a key one, and we highlight several practical French engagements with American forces. President Macron has focused on global reach into the Pacific and with Australia, which has been sharply challenged by the precipitous withdrawal of the Australians from the submarine deal with France that had been labelled by the French government as the “deal of the century.” There is an historic and continuing engagement in the Middle East. And new flashpoints, such as with Turkey, are highlighted as well.
In chapter six, we provide several essays that lay down updates on specific aspects of French defense policy, including updates by the French defense minister. We have included yearly assessments of French defense exports under the Macron Administration here as well as updates of French support to the arms industry under COVID-19.
We conclude with interviews conducted in September 2021, which provide a look back and look forward for the Macron Administration’s defense policy. Defense policies and efforts under the youngest President in the Fifth Republic have been significant.
President Macron was re-elected in 2022, and with the coming of the NATO-Russian War in Ukraine many changes are underway. But that is the subject for a future book. Here we are looking back at Macron’s first administration and his defense policies crafted in this period.