After three days of eventful debates, the Senate largely adopted, Thursday, June 29, in first reading, the military programming bill (LPM) for the period 2024-2030. An approval with 314 votes for and 17 against – coming from the communist ranks – which validated, according to the government, a new increase of several billion euros of the initial budgetary envelope of 413 billion – already qualified “of history” – as well as several sensitive amendments related to cyber and intelligence, against the advice of the government.
While the LPM had left the National Assembly at the beginning of June in a state almost in line with the expectations of the executive, the passage through the Senate, where the Les Républicains (LR) party is in the majority, proved to be much more heckled. In particular under the impetus of Christian Cambon, Senator LR from Val-de-Marne and Chairman since 2017 of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and the Armed Forces, very good connoisseur of these subjects, and who appeared very offensive to approaching the end of his term in September.
Main change at the end of these debates: the upward revision of several equipment acquisition targets which had been trimmed in the government’s initial copy, in particular due to the weight of inflation, raising doubts and frustration within the armies. The senators thus increased the number of armored vehicles of the Griffon type (+ 153 units), Jaguar (+ 17) and Serval (+ 325). They also increased the number of offshore patrol boats (+ 10) and A400M transport planes (+ 2).
battle of numbers
These increases, however, did not officially rejoice the Ministry of the Armed Forces, which saw in them unfunded induced costs. “You add three billion euros”, underlined the Minister for the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu. “We must not forget the maintenance, the soldiers to be trained, or the fuel necessary to move these materials forward”we detail at the Ministry of the Armed Forces, where we recall the issues of sustainability of the French debt, which exceeded the record threshold of 112.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter.
The senators also changed the breakdown of military spending by year, a technical but crucial point. While the executive considered very gradual budget evolution “steps”, pushing back the largest increase in spending after the 2027 presidential election, senators forecast a 3.5 billion euro increase in the first year. of law enforcement, in 2024 (against 3.1 billion forecast), then 3.6 billion every year (instead of 3 billion until 2027 and 4.3 billion from 2028).
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