The platform has not been installed anywhere for the speech that the Minister of the Armed Forces is due to give, Monday October 16, in the Nexter Systems factory (Franco-German group KNDS) in Roanne (Loire). In front of Sébastien Lecornu is lined up a row of six brand new Caesars pointing their 155 millimeter tubes.
In front of them, workers, technicians and engineers from the company, some of whom are preparing to receive from the hands of the minister the silver medal for national defense, the “def-nat” in military jargon, in a sign of recognition of their commitment to producing more and faster. An injunction from the Head of State, in June 2022, during the Eurosatory land arms exhibition, where Emmanuel Macron decreed the“war economy”.
France is not at war. But in the event of high intensity conflict on its territory or in the countries neighbors, it must be able to quickly mobilize resources with its factories and its men – until the “industrial reserve”, whose staff status is taking shape. The war in Ukraine confirmed the rapid attrition of ammunition and equipment. It is only an opportunity for a small-scale rehearsal and, according to the government, for the ramp-up of Caesar’s production.
Industrial risk
“I must first admit that we played big”, recognized Mr. Lecornu. The war economy, “it wasn’t just a slogan,” And “our BITD [base industrielle et technologique de défense] was able to start a production cycle but with more risks” for the cannon and its shells. Industrial risk and financial commitment.
In one year, Nexter drew 300 million euros from its own funds to build up stocks of parts, stock up on raw materials, purchase new machines and anticipate future orders from Caesar. While waiting for those which will be permitted within the framework of the next military programming law (2024-2030), better endowed than the previous one with 413 billion in total.
“We were forced to reinvent ourselves, to shake up our ways of thinking, our ways of action, to innovate, to be bold”, recalls the general director of Nexter Systems, Nicolas Chamussy. The Roanne site, which increased from 850 employees in 2018 to more than 1,500, is mobilized by the Scorpion program, a major operation to replace the army’s armored vehicles with the delivery of 300 Jaguars, 1,800 Griffons and 2 000 Serval by 2035. Their production has been optimized with the establishment of assembly lines inspired by the automobile industry: until now assembled on a single station, the armored vehicle will now move from one station to another and will be subject to specific tasks at each stage. Objective: increase from 300 to 450 vehicles per year in 2025.
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