MINISTER OF ARMED FORCES S. LECORNU HAS UNVEILED THE MILITARY PROGRAMMING BILL

USPA NEWS - French Minister for the Armed Forces, Sebastien Lecornu, unveiled a bill relating to military programming (LPM) for the years 2024 to 2030 with a one of a kind, huge budget of €413 billion, and containing various provisions relating to defence, within the framework of the Council of Ministers of Today, April 4, 2023. Military programming determines, both in the law itself and in the report annexed to it, the orientations of French defense policy for the next seven years and covers the geostrategic, capability , industrial, financial and those related to the living and working conditions of the women and men of defence. In the unstable and unpredictable geopolitical context described by the National Strategic Review (RNS) made public on November 9, 2022, marked by the return of high-intensity war on European soil, by health and climate crises, by deep interdependence between national and international scenes, particularly in the political, energy and economic fields, this fourteenth LPM aims to guarantee our strategic autonomy, to ensure our commitments under our status as a NATO ally and as a member of the European Union and to make France a balancing power.

French Minister for the Armed Forces, Sebastien Lecornu, unveiled a bill relating to military programming (LPM) for the years 2024 to 2030 with a one of a kind, huge budget of €413 billion, and containing various provisions relating to defence, within the framework of the Council of Ministers of Today, April 4, 2023. Military programming determines, both in the law itself and in the report annexed to it, the orientations of French defense policy for the next seven years and covers the geostrategic, capability , industrial, financial and those related to the living and working conditions of the women and men of defence. In the unstable and unpredictable geopolitical context described by the National Strategic Review (RNS) made public on November 9, 2022, marked by the return of high-intensity war on European soil, by health and climate crises, by deep interdependence between national and international scenes, particularly in the political, energy and economic fields, this fourteenth LPM aims to guarantee our strategic autonomy, to ensure our commitments under our status as a NATO ally and as a member of the European Union and to make France a balancing power. The Minister explained that €700 million will be allocated to the recognition, reparation and support of war wounded and their families, following the remarks of the President of the French Republic, Macron of July 13, 2022, at the Hotel de Brienne.

POLITICAL AND MILITARY PRIORITIES ARISING FROM THE MILITARY PROGRAMMING BILL
The Ministry of the Armed Forces has set the political and military priorities resulting from the Military Programmation Bill and provides for a budget of €413 billion deployed over seven (7 years). They are the following:
• Guarantee the long-term credibility of nuclear deterrence, the keystone of our defense tool;
• Transform our armed forces so that France retains operational superiority and is able to deal with all threats, including in new areas of conflict;
• Strengthen the consistency, preparation and responsiveness of the French armed forces, so that they are able to lead coalitions if necessary in major engagements with our allies and partners;
• Pursue the effort undertaken to improve the living and working conditions of military and civilian defense personnel and their families.

For the implementation of these ambitious objectives, this LPM confirms and amplifies the defense effort undertaken by the previous one (law no. 2018-607 of July 13, 2018 relating to military programming for the years 2019 to 2025 and bearing defense provisions). As such, it reflects the political will of the President of the Republic, since 2017, to put an end to several decades of reduction in our military capabilities. This law of transformation succeeds a law of repair. It further reinforces the ambitious means of the previous LPM, which were 295 billion euros over five years, by providing for an effort of 400 billion euros in budgetary appropriations over seven years, which will make it possible to cover a military need of 413 Billions of Euro's. From 2024, the army budget will increase by 3.1 billion euros. Finally, a normative component includes a set of provisions intended to contribute to the responses to the issues and challenges identified by the RNS, organized around four main axes:

• Strengthen the link between the Nation and its army, by consolidating cardinal institutions for the world and combatant memory, by consolidating the tools for attracting and retaining military personnel, by improving support for combatants and families and taking charge of the wounded during military operations and facilitating the build-up of the operational reserve;
• Strengthen our resilience and facilitate intelligence and counter-intelligence activities, with regard to new threats and modes of action of our competitors, by supplementing the action framework of the intelligence services and by providing for better protection of the fundamental interests of the Nation in the event of private activity in connection with a foreign power;

• Provide the Ministry of the Armed Forces with the means to prepare and mobilize the defense industrial and technological base for the construction of a real "war economy", by giving the State the legislative means necessary to ensure its strategic supplies and to meet their needs in all circumstances;
• Strengthen the strategic and operational credibility of the State, by strengthening the autonomy and health resilience of the armed forces and by enabling the State to deal with the extension of conflict, in the fields of the fight against drones malware, the conduct of space operations, nuclear defence, the control of underwater activities and the security of information systems. Source: Ministry fo Armed Forces, French Government,?