The decision was timely and Sébastien Lecornu, Minister of the Armed Forces, immediately welcomed it: Eurenco announced, on February 22, the relocation to its site in Bergerac (Dordogne) of part of its production of propellant powder for shells caliber, with the commissioning of a new workshop in 2025. “This investment [60 millions d’euros] will complete the existing production chain in Bergerac so as to have a sovereign industrial tool”underlined Thierry Francou, CEO of Eurenco, which still produces a lot in Germany and Sweden.
The public company responds to the government’s desire to relocate defense activities and to accelerate the production of armaments – ammunition in priority. The war in Ukraine was a brutal reminder that armies consume huge quantities of it in high-intensity wars, for which France is not prepared. During the three decades of “peace dividends” following the fall of the USSR in 1991, artillery and ammunition were one of the adjustment variables of declining budgets, until the annexation of Crimea by the Russia, in 2014.
We must go from the logic of flows and replenish stocks, insisted Mr. Lecornu, at the end of February, before the bosses of the industrial and technological base of defense (BITD). Without waiting for the 2024-2030 military programming law. If the industrialists have retained the figure of 413 billion euros of global allocation to the armies, they do not yet know the breakdown of the envelope between the armies, nor the allocations to the various programs or the annual rate of increase in credits.
“A considerable effort”
The industry is ramping up. “We have gone from producing two Caesar guns per month to four since the start of the war. We will be at six by the end of the year and the target is eight in 2024.”, explains Alexandre Dupuy, director of public affairs at Nexter. It will be necessary to replace the eighteen guns supplied to kyiv by eighteen other pieces. “We needed before twenty-four to thirty months, we fell to seventeen months”he adds, which calls for a “considerable effort”.
And first ” anticipate “ on supplies and advancing capital for electronic boxes, high-performance steel blanks forged by Aubert & Duval and 155 mm shell components (powder, shell body, fuze). Nexter also builds Leclerc heavy tanks and Griffon, Serval and Jaguar armored vehicles. “But we gave priority to the Caesar” for raw materials, sub-assemblies and labour, emphasizes Mr. Dupuy. For its part, its Italian subsidiary Simmel Difesa will go from producing 2,000 to 4,000 shells per month by March 2024.
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