French defense companies are "
ready
" to ramp up production, as the government wants, Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Saturday, noting that one of the obstacles was the difficulty of hiring.
He was speaking during a visit to the equipment manufacturer Aresia, which started in 2020 near Valenciennes (North) the production of high-power bombs for aviation, weighing up to 1 ton, previously imported the United States.
Read also“It is urgent to reinvest in our Defense given the scale of the threat”
"
The French defense industrial and technological base wants to move forward quickly
" to accelerate its production, underlined Sébastien Lecornu, questioned about France's ability to meet the growing ammunition needs of the Ukrainian army.
"
To be able to supply a friendly army, you have to be able to produce
", he nevertheless indicated, emphasizing that "
there are employment issues
" in certain territories where "
industries are having trouble hiring and we finds itself with delays in production
”.
“Produce more”
"
To save several months or even several years (...), it is a multiplicity of small decisions that must be taken at various levels
", within the companies of the sector but also of the State, he said. underline.
The Minister indicated that he was going to write this week to the actors of the French defense sector to solicit their proposals in order to develop a “
plan
” in this direction, “
which will come to be attached to the law of military programming
”.
President Emmanuel Macron estimated on Thursday that the French defense industry should learn to "
produce more
" and "
faster
", saying he wanted to "
learn the lessons of the war in Ukraine
" in the next military programming law.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: kyiv denounces “Russian terror” after a deadly bombardment near Odessa
“
We have a fairly large capacity for acceleration
” of the production rate, declared for his part to AFP Bruno Berthet, president of Aresia, while indicating that he was working on “
more responsiveness
” to cope with an increase .
sudden demand in the event of a crisis.
The budget of the Ministry of the Armed Forces has started to rise again in recent years, and will grow by three billion euros per year by 2025, to reach 50 billion in 2025.