The Rearmament of France at an Impasse
Editorial by Nicolas Baverez — Le Point Hebdo, February 26, 2026
By displaying its differences with Germany, France is repeating its past mistakes and putting Europe in danger.
Faced with the collapse of France, German leaders are no longer holding back their blows, including in the field of defense, which was long taboo. The Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul, on February 16, deemed the efforts of France to rearm “insufficient,” called on our country to “implement economic savings in the social domain to achieve the central objective of Europe’s defense capability,” and finally ruled out any mutualization of rearmament through European borrowing. This admonition is part of the deep degradation of Franco-German cooperation in defense, punctuated by the abandonment of the future tank in favor of modernizing the Leopard, the announced death of the SCAF, and the formation of a Berlin-Rome axis bypassing Paris. The reprimand from the German minister is, to say the least, misplaced. Germany was in fact the spearhead of Europe’s disarmament after the fall of the Berlin Wall, with investment reduced to 1.36% of GDP between 2000 and 2025. It accumulated a lag of more than 600 billion euros relative to the NATO target of 2% of GDP, which it used for the competitiveness of its businesses. It delegated its security to the United States and maintained this choice despite the latter’s conversion to illiberalism, trusting American companies for its rearmament and substituting dependence on Russian gas with dependence on American LNG.
On substance, however, the warning is well-founded. France is about to miss the train of Europe’s rearmament, locking itself into a fourfold impasse.
Strategic impasse. Emmanuel Macron claimed to position France as a balancing power. But this notion makes no sense in a world governed solely by power dynamics. The display of a global strategy is disconnected from our capabilities and obscures the real threats: Russia to the east — an existential danger reinforced by the alignment of Trump’s America with Moscow, the fragmentation of the West, and the disintegration of NATO; the breakdown of states and Islamist terrorism to the south.
Operational impasse. Four years after the invasion of Ukraine, the French army is incapable of waging high-intensity warfare. The Hedgehog exercise — in Estonia, in May 2025 — demonstrated this, when Ukrainian drone operators pulverized two NATO battalions in less than twenty-four hours. The military programming law for 2024–2030 set itself the objective of “repairing” the expeditionary army model of the 1990s rather than preparing for 21st-century warfare.
French rearmament is a victim of the state’s financial bankruptcy.
Deterrence has become a new Maginot Line that masks the collapse of conventional capabilities. Our armies have neither the mass nor the depth to withstand a war of attrition, nor the technological equipment for technological warfare: space, cyber, drones (3,000 drones will be ordered in 2026 when Ukraine will produce between 7 and 8 million), air defense. Finally, the protection of the population and territory has been neglected, even as civilians constitute the primary target of modern conflicts.
Industrial impasse. French defense companies have become the world’s second-largest arms exporter, but their rise in power is hampered by delays in orders and, even more so, in state payments. Furthermore, France exports very little within Europe, despite the nearly 40% increase in defense spending since 2022.
Financial impasse. French rearmament is a victim of the state’s financial bankruptcy, with debt that will rise to 118.6% of GDP by the end of 2026. Debt servicing will consume 100 billion euros in 2029, while the defense budget will cap at 70 billion in 2030 (compared to 170 billion for Germany).
Paralyzed by the bankruptcy of its public finances, France is on the verge of repeating the errors that led to the terrible defeats of 1870 and 1940. It possesses an autonomous deterrent and combat experience, but finds itself constrained by an obsolete army model. Germany has the financial resources but remains subservient to the United States and has lost the capacity to wage war. There will be neither sovereignty nor security for Europe without refounding the Franco-German core and without a radical aggiornamento of both countries. ●