On 9 April, the Chief of Staff of the Army (CEMAT), General Pierre Schill, appeared before the National Defence and Armed Forces Committee with a text to defend and many questions to anticipate. The up-to-date Military Programming Law (LPM) 2024-2030, currently under review at the National Assembly, involves important choices for the Army: where to focus efforts, which programs to accelerate, and which to postpone. The following highlights the main topics of this hearing, from anti-drone combat to the tank of the future, and what they reveal about the real state of the Army.
This update is not a new Military Programming Law. The LPM voted in 2023 remains in place. What the text provided to the deputies brings is a revision of certain priorities, an acceleration in urgently needed areas, partially funded by budgetary trade-offs involving delays elsewhere. CEMAT stated in his opening remarks: “the 2023 plan is good, it is coherent, but it needs to be accelerated and expanded.” The speed and scope of the transformation must adapt accordingly.
Since 2023, according to him, the nature of threats has changed. Not only their intensity, but their logic as well. Some powers no longer wait for open conflict to exert pressure. They act constantly, using means that remain below the threshold of armed conflict: economic pressure, disinformation, calculated provocations, shows of force. “For the imperial powers facing us, peace is now the prelude to war by other means,” Pierre Schill stated. Therefore, the Army must prepare for two things simultaneously: high-intensity engagement by 2030 and potential confrontations in the next three or four years, where credibility must be maintained without necessarily engaging in combat.
If the update has a clear priority, it is the strengthening of deep-strike capabilities. The CEMAT mentioned a figure that summarizes the priority: in recent conflicts and high-intensity engagement simulations, about 70% of enemy destruction comes from long-range fires. Artillery, rockets, precision-guided ammunition. Not tanks, not frontline infantry. The fires.
The consequence directly affects acquisitions. The update provides for more CAESAr NG, a significant increase in volume of precision-guided ammunition (MTO), around 400% compared to the initial LPM, GM 200 counter-battery radars (Thales), and additional ammunition. At the infantry regiment level, each unit now has its own mortar sections, restoring infantrymen with an organic strike capability they haven’t had for a long time.
The individual rocket launcher is a separate issue. The LRU, capable of striking up to 70 kilometers deep, will become obsolete by 2027. Its successor has not yet been chosen. Pierre Schill indicated that the decision should be made in the coming months. Two French consortiums are competing on the FLP-T program: Thales and ArianeGroup on one side, MBDA and Safran on the other, with their Thundart system which has just completed its first trial. Foreign solutions are also in the running, notably the Indian Pinaka and the South Korean Chunmoo, cheaper and quickly available, but raise questions of industrial sovereignty that France cannot ignore. The ultimate goal is to have three long-range fire regiments, one per division and one at the army corps level. Currently, only one fulfills this role. The road ahead is still long.
Further along the spectrum, the land-based ballistic missile, with a striking range of over a thousand kilometers, addresses an identified need, involving inter-service logic. At this stage, capacity reflection is advancing, but nothing is decided on organization or even which branch of the military would have operational control.
Context and Fact Check: – CEMAT stands for Chef d’état-major des armées de Terre, which translates to Chief of Staff of the Army. – LPM refers to the loi de programmation militaire, the French term for Military Programming Law. – CAESAr NG is a military artillery system. – GM 200 refers to counter-battery radars. – Thales, ArianeGroup, MBDA, and Safran are defense industry companies. – Pinaka is an Indian military rocket. – The discussion mentions advancements in drone interception technology and robotic combat units under the Pendragon program.
