The Rafale M01 prototype and the Foch aircraft carrier in the 1990s.
The IHEDN is the successor to the Centre des hautes études de l'Armement (CHEAr, 1964-2009), in particular through the Armaments and Defence Economics (AED) major of the national session. We were therefore particularly interested in the short documentary produced by the French Armament Procurement Agency (DGA) under the auspices of the Mission des 80 ans de la Libération. Packed with enlightening archive footage and educational commentary, it retraces the successive choices made by France in the aftermath of the Second World War to equip its armies and ensure its defence in all areas, in complete autonomy.
To accompany this 15-minute film, the members of the History Committee of the Confédération amicale des ingénieurs de l'armement (Association of armament engineers) (CAIA) answered a few questions in order to delve deeper into the fascinating history of this reconstruction.
AT THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, WHAT WERE THE POSSIBLE DIRECTIONS FOR REBUILDING THE FRENCH ARMS INDUSTRY, AND HOW WERE THE CHOICES MADE?
General de Gaulle, followed by the Fourth Republic, felt that France should regain its pre-war status as a great power. This meant rebuilding a complete army and defence industry, including nuclear weapons. This vision was shared by men born before the First World War, who wanted to erase the humiliation of May 1940.
Fully equipped with American or British equipment in 1945, we used the arsenals and their design offices to build up national capabilities in all land and naval areas, including missiles, often using German engineers. In the aeronautical sector, we produced a large number of prototypes in a widely dispersed private or nationalised industry, followed by a natural concentration of the industry.
As far as nuclear power is concerned, two key figures played a decisive role: General de Gaulle, who created the French Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in October 1945, and Pierre Mendès-France, who authorised the launch of military nuclear programmes on 26 December 1954, for both naval propulsion and weapons.
French industry, isolated from military technological advances during the war, quickly benefited from the mobilisation of official services and national industry in response to resolute political orientations. In addition, General de Gaulle's action, which enabled France to occupy a zone in Germany, was used effectively to attract to France German engineers and technicians specialising in the technologies developed during the war.
"THE ALTERNATIVE WOULD HAVE BEEN TO ACCEPT BECOMING A MIDDLE POWER".
The alternative would have been to accept becoming a middle power, dependent on others for its security and major armaments. None of the "victors" of the Second World War made that choice.
In this second hypothesis, France should have specialised in areas where it excelled and where it had not fallen too far behind, abandoning, for example, aviation, where it was lagging far behind. It could have concentrated on electronics, an emerging sector requiring moderate investment. And of course, it would not have invested in nuclear power.
This is what Germany did (after 1949) because it was forbidden to do otherwise. It specialised in land and naval armaments. The United Kingdom, for its part, followed a similar path to France and continued to develop in all areas, but eventually accepted a certain level of dependence on the United States, particularly in the area of nuclear deterrence.
Watch the documentary "Reconstructing France's post-war industrial fabric".
2025 - DGA Communication - All rights reserved
AFTER THE NUCLEAR AUTONOMY OF THE 1960S, HOW HAVE THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND INDUSTRY ADAPTED TO THE NEW THREATS THAT HAVE EMERGED SINCE THE 1990S?
Nuclear autonomy doesn't stop at the end of the 1960s: it's a constant challenge!
In parallel with this priority, all the armaments sectors began and then continued their adaptation imposed by the constant modernisation of the Soviet arsenal, taking advantage of a redirection of appropriations made possible by the end of the decolonisation conflicts. Admittedly, some of these sectors contributed to deterrence as well as to conventional forces, particularly for the Air Force and Navy, but all conventional armaments were adapted to the geostrategic situation and therefore to the Cold War.
The DGA has pursued its policy of concentrating the industry, aiming for efficiency, and has transformed the arsenals into entities under private law, with a productivity gain of around 30%. At the same time, constant efforts have been made to ensure European cooperation on new programmes, following on from the numerous Franco-German co-developments in the land sector and Franco-British co-developments in the aeronautical sector launched in the 1960s.
Generally speaking, France has tried to transpose its policy of strategic autonomy to the European level, but until 2017 it encountered the hostility of the European Commission to state funding of research and development (R&D), which is essential, and the hostility of most NATO members, who are keen to maintain close cooperation with the United States.
DID NEW THREATS REALLY EMERGE IN THE 90S?
Instead, we believed in perpetual peace with "peace dividends". It was the end of history, with a (relative) lull in the speed of technological development: reduction in the financial and human resources devoted by the State to defence, privatisation of State-owned industrial capacities, concentration of companies. However, these changes have had little or no impact on the components of deterrence.
In all areas, design and development capabilities have been maintained for the most part. On the other hand, production capacity has been reduced to meet the very limited needs of an army that has to fight for a few days in Europe as part of a coalition, and intervene autonomously outside Europe. Exports have played a very important role in maintaining French production and design capacity, and have helped to set prices at the level imposed by the United States in world trade.
However, an old threat re-emerged in the 1990s: the proliferation of ballistic missiles. So-called "rogue" states began to acquire this type of weapon with conventional warheads, no doubt with the intention of equipping them with biological and chemical warheads as well. France has maintained its logic of traditional deterrence and has studied defence solutions in the face of this threat, for example with the development of the Aster B1NT missile in the SAMP-T NG system for short-range ballistic missiles.
More recently, initiatives have been launched in Europe to develop a capacity to protect Europe against increasingly threatening ballistic threats: the ESSI project led by Germany and the Hydis project led by France. This subject is currently the subject of much debate.
It was in 2001 and afterwards that the threat of terrorism emerged, but it was initially thought to be a police problem. As far as the arms industry is concerned, the attacks of 2015 did not bring about any major changes, any more than the previous commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and then the Sahel.
Russia's apparent change of position meant that the armed forces, the DGA and industry had to adapt. Finally, the invasion of Ukraine showed that war requires ammunition and production and even storage capacity. This has led to a change in the position of our defence industry, which is called upon to supply large quantities of equipment to French and allied armies. And this at a time when technology is constantly developing, forcing us to make up for our oversight of the drone explosion and at the same time think about artificial intelligence, quantum technology and war in space (among other things).
IN THE CURRENT CONTEXT OF RENEWED CONFLICT, HOW DOES THE FRENCH MODEL COMPARE WITH THOSE OF OTHER COUNTRIES IN TACKLING THE MANY CHALLENGES IT FACES?
As mentioned above, nuclear autonomy and credibility are constant challenges that the French model has always been able to meet. So when the strengthening of anti-aircraft defences made missile penetration increasingly complex, France launched the modernisation of its airborne nuclear component with the programme. We could also mention the 3-metre long ballistic missile submarinese generation.
The other current challenges are rearmament, provoked by the pursuit of Russia's eternal policy, which can only be achieved by the more rapid production of existing weapons or by imports from external arsenals such as the United States and South Korea, and the search for Europe's long-term strategic autonomy, provoked by recent American reversals which, following on from others and preceding new ones, are the result of the very structure of power in the United States.
They are not new, but Russia and the United States are ensuring that they are now understood rather than denied.
These issues are the same for all Europeans, but the lack of products in some European countries, and insufficient production capacity in others, is leading to massive imports of defence equipment (from South Korea, Israel, etc.), whose factories have remained in a war economy, and to continued massive purchases of American equipment despite the uncertainty associated with it.
Strategic autonomy, which only France and to a lesser extent Great Britain have pursued to date, must now be sought, beyond the current rearmament, by all Europeans, and if possible facilitated by the Commission.
"WE NEED TO CREATE WORLD-CLASS EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS".
The French model - the quest for strategic autonomy (political autonomy in the use of weapons) through the creation of R&D appropriations and the maintenance of design offices in industry, concentrated as far as possible to meet French military requirements - has created almost all of Europe's current autonomy capabilities, through national or cooperative programmes.
If it can be transposed to Europe as a whole, it responds to the European need for long-term strategic autonomy.
For this to happen, the Commission needs to be more forthright in abandoning the application of free trade to the armaments sector, and to continue along the path of financial support for R&D in cooperative programmes, without seeking to recreate competition in an area where, on the contrary, we need to create world-class European champions.
In addition, export support policies, which can only be national and which have enabled production and even design capabilities to be maintained, must not be hampered by regulations that go beyond the principles already agreed at European level, and must not discourage cooperation on major armaments.
The French model remains relevant in terms of design and development capabilities, provided we have the human resources to support it. This will require the continuation of the efforts initiated by the Military Planning Acts (LPM). However, a number of weak signals need to be taken into account: in particular in the field of innovation, where it is crucial to regain the responsiveness seen during the Cold War. This challenge concerns both government departments and manufacturers, who are facing increased competition from certain industrial and service sectors.
For production, the transition to a war economy decided by the President of the Republic can be seen as a change of model. It will lead to the creation of production capacity, whether used or not, which will require the setting up of long-term credits.
