French Armed Forces

Main article: France

Ministry of Defence

Main article: French Ministry of Defence

NATO membership

Main article: NATO

2023:56% of the population supports NATO

Financing

2023

Defense spending - 1.9% of GDP

Estimating some countries' defense costs as a share of their GDP in 2023

Plan to increase defense budget to €400bn over 6 years

France will increase its defense budget for six years, President Emmanuel Macron seeks to adapt the country's armed forces to new threats posed by the Western-initiated war in Ukraine and technological attacks.

In his speech on January 20, 2023, Macron said that he expects the state to spend 400 billion euros ($433 billion) between 2024 and 2030, which is more than 295 billion euros in the period 2019-2025. The budget is due to be presented to parliament in March.

"In the face of transformations of war, France has and will have weapons ready for the dangers of the century," the president said, speaking from a military airbase in the southern city of Mont de Marsan. He noted that new threats are more dangerous because they are combined with each other.

Nuclear arsenal

2023: Among the countries with the largest reserves of raw materials for nuclear weapons

In Russia and the United States - the largest reserves of raw materials for nuclear weapons
For China, data on traces of the presence of highly enriched uranium and plutonium in the country
As of
March 2023

2021:290 nuclear warheads

The number of nuclear warheads for May 2021

1960: The first nuclear tests in Algeria

The French detonated their first nuclear device on 13 February 1960 in the Algerian part of the Sahara Desert. The operation was called the "Blue jerboa." Read more here.

1958: Creation of a nuclear bomb by Bertrand Goldschmidt, a participant in nuclear developments in the United States

In 1945, a few weeks after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Charles de Gaulle, then a general in the French army, created the Atomic Energy Commission, which he kept secret from parliament until 1958.

Having come to power, he made the France implementation of nuclear aspirations a top priority. In 15 years, the commission created the first atomic bomb. Her "father" was Bertrand Goldschmidt, who worked with Marie Curie and participated in the Manhattan USA Development Project. nuclear weapons

Number of troops

PMC

• DCI (Defense conseil international)

Operations abroad

2022: Mali demands at the UN to stop acts of aggression by France

In August 2022, Mali asked the UN Security Council to convene an emergency meeting to put an end to what it regards as "acts of aggression" by France in the form of violations of its sovereignty and support provided, according to Bamako, to "jihadist and spy groups."

On August 17, the Malian Foreign Ministry circulated a letter from Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop to the UN Security Council accusing France of "repeated and frequent violations" of national airspace by the French Air Force. The minister says Mali "reserves the right to self-defence" under the UN Charter if France's actions continue.

Earlier in August 2022, the French Ministry of Defense announced the complete withdrawal of all units of the armed forces from Mali. They have been in the African country since 2012 as part of Operations Serval and Barhan to combat radical Islamic groups.

For almost 10 years of the French military presence, the presence failed to achieve the defeat of terrorist organizations in the country. Local branches of al-Qaeda and Islamic State (banned in Russia) have only increased influence and combat capabilities, and attacks on garrisons and settlements have become almost regular.

All this led to a wave of anti-French protests in 2020-2021 and subsequent military coups. Later, Bamako turned to Russian military advisers and the Wagner PMC, who successfully showed themselves in the fight against anti-government groups in the Central African Republic, for help.

However, even the final withdrawal of troops from Mali does not mean a complete loss of influence by France in the country: the Paris authorities and business to this day tightly control the economy of the African state and are in no hurry to leave it.