French military spending will nominally have doubled in a decade from 2017 to 2027 under a new cash boost by President Emmanuel Macron to hedge against the disappearance of the post-Second World War international order.
France will spend an extra $4 billion on defence in 2026 and $3.5 billion more in 2027 on top of the present budget, Emmanuel Macron told military leaders in a eve-of-Bastille Day speech on Sunday night. This extra spending is necessary because world events are running at such a pace Europe risks being left behind and because freedom is under threat, he said.
The world is in a “time of upheaval” which has long been foreseen but that has now actually arrived, President Macron said, citing “imperialist and annexation powers” such as Russia in his declaration that “freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously, since 1945”.
“We must be capable of facing the Russian threat”, he said.
A horse slips as France’s mounted Garde Republicaine Music members parade during the annual Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP) (Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images)
Broadsheet Le Figaro reports his comments that peace in Europe is dependent on decisions taken by nations now, and as the post-Second World War global system is challenged, the new reality is “as there are no more rules, the law of the strongest prevails”.
So France, Macron says, needs to be strong to remain “masters of our destiny”. To achieve this, while taking a sly dig at the United States for refocussing its attentions on the East as Iran and China become more present threats, Macron said: “To be free in this world, we must be feared. And to be feared, we must be powerful… We Europeans must now ensure our own security.”
While the spending increase is non-trivial, otherwise President Macron’s rhetoric is standard for NATO in 2025 in its emphasis on the importance of obvious strength as a deterrent to would be malign actors to prevent war, but also right down to smaller remarks like the concept of whole-of-society defence. NATO leaders like the recently retired Admiral Rob Bauer and the new Secretary General Mark Rutte are obsessed with this concept, of onboarding the general public into the security realm, and of investing heavily in industrial capability to ensure the West isn’t just ready to fight, but to supply its fighters with limitless munitions on the front.
“Everyone must be at their combat post”, Macron said.
The President claimed the extra spending would mean the country’s defence budget will have doubled in the decade to 2027. This is, in a very narrow sense, correct: the budget will have nominally risen from $37 billion a year in 2017 to $75 billion in 2027.
Yet France — and the world — has been through a period of steep inflation and sluggish economic growth in that decade and in real terms the growth is less pronounced, even if a jump from around two per cent of national GDP to three in that time is nothing to be sniffed at.
The increase is also remarkable given the severe fiscal difficulties facing the French state, with budget savings through cuts being treated as essential. French government debt is now so high — over 100 per cent of GDP — the annual cost of servicing that debt is now $72 billion, more than the whole defence budget in 2025.
On Monday, Macron reviewed a large military parade in Paris as part of the nation’s Bastille Day celebrations. The annual parade is considered one of the world’s best military displays but the day was not without its unscripted moments, including a cavalry horse throwing its rider and galloping away from the parade and a soldier performing a mass sabres-drawn march appearing to have nearly cut his own ear off.
French media featured footage of the bloodied youth unflinchingly marching on as blood stained his uniform, and praised him for not breaking ranks.
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