The French White paper – the ten main thrusts

ANALYSIS The French White Paper – the 10 main thrusts

(ESDU/Hb) On 29 April 2013 the President of France released the White Paper on Defence positioning French defence in the national and international context. The European – Security and Defence Union presents its own brief initial analysis of the essentials.

1. National Security Concept Aims to allow France to ward off direct or indirect threats and risks and threats likely to endanger the nation by mobilising the entire State assets, including armed and civil security forces, and to guarantee the security of Europe and the North Atlantic area in cooperation with partners and allies. A special interest is the stabilisation of the Mediterranean region and Africa.

2. The European Union (EU) and NATO are the two strategic pillars of France’s strategy, which aims to: • Promote a pragmatic re-vitalisation of the CSDP; • Give a strong role to NATO and overhaul its means of action.

3. Threats and risks stemming from: • power issues, through the resurgence of inter-state conflicts; • weakness, through failed states; • terrorism and cyber attacks; • organised crime; • economic globalisation; • natural or man-made disasters.

4. General Strategy • protection of the nation’s population and territories; • nuclear deterrence; • external intervention by armed forces. These priorities give rise to five tasks: Knowledge & anticipation, deterrence, protection, prevention and intervention.

5. Military Strategy The strategic context gives rise to four guiding principles for the new armed forces model: • Strategic autonomy whenever it may be deemed necessary to take the lead in coalition engagements; • Consistency of the armed forces model confronted with a diversity of possible engagements; • Differentiation of forces according to their function and specialisation; • Pooling of capabilities to create new capacities.

6. Capabilities in financial crisis • Maintenance of a substantial defence effort; • Recognition of an industrial imperative; • Re-definition of an armed forces model.

7. Armed forces model The reduced armed forces must conduct a broad spectrum of engagements: (1) A deterrence task based on two components: protection of the population and territory as a whole while protecting land, air and sea approaches with 10. 000 troops and their respective naval and air components; (2) Engagement in international crisis management where necessary in three theatres with 7000 troops, the combined naval assets of the support and command vessels group and 12 fighter aircraft; (3) Engagement in major coercive operations involving the special forces, up to two combat brigades with 15. 000 land forces, 45 fighter aircraft and a naval aviation group.

8. Cyber Defence procure France with the most modern technology and combine the strategy with the intelligence strategy.

9. Priority to intelligence: • Improving governance by strengthening the role of the National Intelligence Coordinator reporting to the President of the Republic; • Extending the role of parliamentary delegation to enable Parliament to exercise scrutiny of government intelligence policy; • Allocation of budgets to provide all kinds of space and air components for imaging and electromagnetic interception, diversification of sensors, notably with drones, light surveillance aircraft and payloads on air, naval or land platforms; • Using those assets in a pooling mode against cyber attacks and intelligence services.

10. Human Resources • Personnel: The process already launched in 2008 aimed at a radical change in the living conditions and morale of the women and men serving in defence will be reinforced with a view to recognising the full citizenship status of military personnel. They must be able to benefit from general social trends creating personal rights in order to better reconcile the demands of their professional and private lives while encouraging self-expression and modernising consultation procedures; • Reductions: Between 2014 and 2019 the Ministry of Defence must reduce total staff numbers by 34 000, excluding outsourcing; • Reserves: The importance of trained and well-equipped reserves is explicitly recognised.

10. Industrial imperative Defence industries are recognised as essential for France’s strategic autonomy and a substantial volume of public funds is earmarked for the preservation of crucial expertise in key sectors.