{"id":325711,"date":"2026-04-05T07:38:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=325711"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:34:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:34:54","slug":"france-prepares-for-war-economy-plans-to-quadruple-suicide-drones-and-expand-missile-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=325711","title":{"rendered":"France prepares for “war economy”, plans to quadruple suicide drones and expand missile arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Balkan Web \u2013 April 4, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

France is looking to quadruple its stockpile of suicide drones and drastically expand its missile arsenals by the end of the decade, Politico reported on Friday, citing a draft military planning bill that describes the push as preparation for a \u201cwar economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the 64-page document to be presented by the government next week, French policymakers intend to focus on expanding their ammunition arsenals rather than the armed forces themselves, taking a cue from the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, which have been depleting Western weapons stockpiles at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n

In this regard, stocks of roving munitions, such as kamikaze drones, are expected to increase by 400%, Safran-made AASM Hammer guided bombs by 240%, and Aster and Mica missiles by 30% by 2030, Politico reported.<\/p>\n

The draft says the effort is being carried out \u201cwith the aim of preparing for a \u2018war economy\u2019, with investments channeled into \u201cco-financing priority production capacities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the proposal, total defense spending would increase steadily, from 63.3 billion euros ($73 billion) in 2027 to 76.3 billion euros by 2030. The amounts, while set out in the planning law, would require new parliamentary approval each year once the bill passes the legislature.<\/p>\n

France does not plan to increase the size of its armed forces or purchase additional large equipment, such as Rafale jets or frigates, the report said.<\/p>\n

Paris has also apparently put Eurodrone \u2014 a joint long-range reconnaissance program with Germany, Italy and Spain \u2014 on hold, with no funding allocated for the long-delayed project. However, France is reportedly considering studies for a successor to the Leclerc main battle tank, which has been in service since 1992.<\/p>\n

The plan is in line with a long-standing effort by French President Emmanuel Macron to make France and its European allies less dependent on American weapons and achieve \u201cstrategic autonomy.\u201d Earlier this week, he declared that he did not want Paris \u201cto be a vassal of two hegemonic powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

“We don’t want to depend on dominance, let’s say from China, or we don’t want to be too exposed to US unpredictability,” he added.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taking its cue from the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran, France plans to massively increase its stockpile of drones and missiles<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":325713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-325711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-france"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=325711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325712,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325711\/revisions\/325712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/325713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=325711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=325711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=325711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}