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France: Former Defense Official Urges France to Emphasize Space-Based Programs Former French Defense Minister Paul Quiles yesterday said France should decrease spending on nuclear weapons programs and use the savings to lead the European Union toward a new emphasis on space-based defense programs. In a commentary in Le Figaro, Quiles called for EU spending of more than $3 billion annually on military space programs, including a French contribution of more than $1 billion each year. He said France could free up the funds by cutting about $500 million, or about 15 percent, from its annual nuclear weapons budget. “The current efforts in nuclear dissuasion seem particularly excessive in light of developments in the strategic environment. They rest on programs that were defined mainly during the Cold War, when France faced the threat of a massive invasion of its territory by an overarmed nuclear power,” Quiles wrote. “The threats of today are completely different. They no longer justify an effort that accounts for 10 percent of the defense budget (compared with 3 percent in the United Kingdom),” he continued. Quiles deemed insufficient current French spending on military space technology, which he put at more than $450 million, and backed ramping up funds for intelligence and communications satellites. Increases in space spending, added Quiles, would encourage cooperation among EU countries on defense — made necessary by the recent conduct of the United States in the international arena, according to Quiles — and enable them to “accede to autonomy, that is, to freedom in evaluating risks and threats.” “The same need for strategic autonomy should also lead Europe to develop an advance warning system allowing it [Europe] to detect the propulsive phase of ballistic missile strikes. … The military space program is also necessary to give Europe the broadband data transmission ability that is now required for carrying out integrated, real-time operations in remote theaters,” he said (Paul Quiles, Le Figaro, July 14, GSN translation).
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