Macron promises to boost France’s defence budget by €6.5bn over next 2 years

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French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to increase military spending by 6.5 billion euros over the next two years, saying that this effort was necessary and necessary in the face of escalating threats, including from Russia.

In a speech to military officials on the eve of the Pastel Day, Macron argued that France still has a way to enhance defensive spending, despite the urgent need to reform its deteriorating public funds.

Macron said that the defense budget for 2026 will be collected by 3.5 billion euros, and another 3 billion euros in 2027. This will represent an increase of approximately 6 percent over a total of 110 billion euros, which was already planned in 2026 and 2027.

“This is the new historical [spending] Macron said on Sunday: “The voltage is proportional, credible and indispensable. It is what is required,” Macron said on Sunday.

“Since 1945, she has never been threatened, and she was not seriously,” the French president said of the traditional and raider military threats facing Europe. “To be free in this world, we must be afraid. We are afraid, we must be strong.”

The defense seems to be the only field to obtain additional resources when Prime Minister Francois Bayro reveals a 2026 budget plan on Tuesday.

To start narrowing the wide deficit, the government is working on a financial package of 40 billion euros in discounts in spending and tax increase, and the public warned that everyone will have to contribute to this effort. Without a majority of work in parliament, the Bayro government remains vulnerable to the overthrow of the budget.

But most opposition parties have supported higher defensive spending in recent years and are expected to do so again.

European countries were under pressure from US President Donald Trump to do more to ensure their security, which led to a historic agreement in June between NATO countries to raise basic defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP.

This represents a significant increase in the historical goal by 2 percent, which now meets about three quarters of NATO members, including France.

It will be difficult for Paris to achieve the new NATO goal in view of its extended financial resources, according to legislators and analysts.

Macron has argued that the European Union should start joint borrowing to strengthen regional defense, but other member states, including Germany, remain against it.

Instead, Germany has embarked on a huge wave of defensive spending that it would be funded by assuming additional debts.

Berlin has a space to do this because the debt rate to GDP reached 62.5 percent at the end of 2024, according to Eurostat, while France was 113 percent, behind Greece and Italy only.

Since Macron was first elected in 2017, it has made the priority of rebuilding the army after decades of discounts after the Cold War. France has passed multiple -years military budgets that aim to reform its deteriorating forces and double the annual defense budget from 2017 by 2030.

The French leader said that the newly announced spending will mean that the defense budget will be doubled instead to reach 64 billion euros by the end of 2027, which is his last year in office.

France has one of the strongest armies in Europe with a wide range of capabilities, including nuclear weapons that can be carried on submarines and fighting aircraft. The nuclear capacity represents about 13 percent of the total equipment budget. It also maintains a aircraft carrier and has nearly 200,000 individuals.