Thread by @Valen10Francois

This map drives Paris crazy. It shows France hardly contributing to Ukraine’s defense, but Paris say the data is bullshit.

As Macron is taking a hardline stance on Russia, let’s see whether the map is off or if France is genuinely not taking its fair share.

A 🧵

Let’s start with the data from the map above.

From Jan 2022 to Jan 2024 France pledged $700 million in military equipment

Light years behind: Germany(19.42bn), UK (10bn)

But also behind Estonia (980M) or Lithuania(900M) !

So who measures this? The Kiel Institute, an independent, non-profit German economic research institute

The idea is that they count publicly pledged resources.

They explain their methodology here:

They argue it's the best way to measure aid.ifw-kiel.de/publications/t…

Paris says the tracker compares🍏vs🍊(or “cauliflowers and 🥕” in French)

Defense Minister Lecornu: “They stick to the statements. But everything that France promised has been delivered. Some countries made a lot of announcements, but it was not followed up or with defective equipment”

Below he argues that France would be top 5 when counting what was actually delivered



French equipment tends to be much more modern and more operational than others (let’s say east of the Rhine).

Many countries will empty their old stocks

https://twitter.com/SebLecornu/status/1761659239255122119

French weapons have been huge tactical game changers

Caesar canons have allowed Ukrainian artillery to play cat and mouse with the Russians

Long range Scalp have allowed to hit backlines

A2SM "hammer bombs" allow high precision bombing at a safe distance

🇩🇪chancellor also (accidentally?) revealed that the French+the Brits (allegedly) have advisors to help 🇺🇦with their equipment

A huge diplomatic scandal (denied by 🇫🇷🇬🇧) but it indicates that Paris is ready to go further in the after-sales service than 🇩🇪

https://twitter.com/EHunterChristie/status/1763137726537183324

So why isn’t France sending its old stocks like others?
Partly because that’s not what the Ukrainians need but also because France’s reserves are dangerously low.

France’s presence in the Sahel has been taxing: the lifespan of a tank/helicopter there is divided by 3

The French (like the Italian) also argued that a lot of their shipments have stayed top secret. Full transparency would be a huge advantage for the Russians.

The French also argue that contributions through the EU are not included, which would increase France’s numbers but also Germany's.

France also trains around a quarter of the 30 k Ukrainian troops being trained across the EU.

But there is also another reality here, given France’s debt (112% gdp), it’s a real struggle to find fiscal space relative to Germany, something that Macron admitted last week.



His gov't in the last month has made 10 bn in budget cuts with more to come

https://twitter.com/le_Parisien/status/1768371291751342549

The French parliament (not the gov't) has tried to blow their numbers up. A report found that France had actually contributed 3.2 Bn rather than 700 million

But … It counts the cost for France of replacing the equipment rather than the equipment itself

lemonde.fr/international/…

And yet that's basically what many other countries have been doing according to French sources, only with a bigger gap between what's on paper and reality because very antiquated stocks are valued at the price of very modern equipment !

In the meantime is France stepping up its defense industry to send more? Yes ... and no.

Macron argued in 2022 that we were entering a “war economy” but a recent parliamentary report states that while production has increased, it remains well short of a war economy

senat.fr/notice-rapport…

Defense budget is on track to double since Macron’s election from 32.3 bn in 2017 to 67.4 bn in 2027 (47.2 now)

Def. Minister says that it now takes Thales 6 months rather than 24 to build a radar, Caesar take 8 months vs 30 months in 2022, etc

more below:

https://twitter.com/hexagone_news/status/1770049950497288286

Is it enough? some context:

France produces around 3k shells a month.

That’s 3 times more than in 2022.

But less than half of Ukraine’s consumption per week (and way less than Russia's)

France is importing a lot more than before. It is in fact the second largest importer of weapons in the world after the US but ahead of Russia.

Exports have increased by 47% over 2019-2023 compared to 2014-2018

One big industry boss says off the record that a part of the boost in recent years comes from countries that are close to 🇷🇺(to avoid sanctions)

There’s also grumblings about poor coordination between the French state and the industry

https://twitter.com/LaTribune/status/1761002620599034065

The hardening of Macron’s stance is genuine (good primer on this below) but he needs to be seen to put his money where his mouth is.

So the French have now accepted they needed to play the Kiel game.

https://twitter.com/BrunoTertrais/status/1767138092429758483

On 4 March they published the full list of the equipment sent in a major change of stance.

(With some secrecy lingering, especially on the new A2SM given their tactical impact)

Good thread below to visualise what is being sent



defense.gouv.fr/actualites/ukr…

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1764471306634879126

Macron pledged an extra 3 bn euros when signing the bilateral defense pact with Ukraine (with some questions on where the funding is going to come from)

The data from Kiel dates from late Jan, so will be interesting to see how much they bump France on the next update

In conclusion, it’s complicated. That map is indeed harsh on France with a lot of its contributions going under the radar.

France has stepped up its production, but it remains well short of what is needed. 2024 is expected to be a big year, but will it be enough?

If you’d like to hear more about European defense capacities, I'm the host of a podcast on European affairs and did this interview of @shashj and @BrunoTertrais below on this topic which might be of interest:

https://twitter.com/UnDecencyPod/status/1767965996675973248