The French president is trying to cement his legacy ahead of next year’s presidential election.
Victor Goury-Laffont
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is currently leading in opinion polls ahead of next year’s election. The National Rally leader has made clear that France would significantly reduce its role in NATO if she wins.
Macron spent much of the 27-minute speech boasting about the steep increase in military spending under his presidency, which he vowed to safeguard.
“I set a clear and measurable target: to achieve a level of defense spending equivalent to 2 percent of national wealth by 2025,” Macron said, referring to his first speech to the French military in 2017. “That promise was kept.”
France’s military spending is expected to reach €64 billion in 2027, double the €32 billion spent in 2017, the year Macron was elected. This year, France is projected to spend 2.2 percent of GDP on defense, a large increase on previous spending but well short of the trajectory needed to reach the alliance’s 2035 target of 3.5 percent of GDP.
The increase has come amid a Europe-wide rearmament drive aimed at countering the threat from Russia, sending weapons to Ukraine and making the continent less reliant on a Donald Trump-led United States.
“Europe is becoming a power built on the states that make it up, one that respects their sovereign decisions but is prepared to defend itself and take action, united,” said Macron, who has long advocated a more muscular European defense posture.
