What to Make of Macron’s Recent Defence Spending Commitments?

On 13 July, 2025, in his annual address to French armed forces, President Emmanuel Macron announced increases in defence spending to take place over the course of the next two (and final) years of his presidency. Framed as necessary to face a turbulent and imminently threatening security environment, these announcements come amidst heightened domestic political tensions over skyrocketing national debt and the controversial and austere 2026 budget proposal to reign it in.

In his speech, Macron called on Europe to ensure its own security (in line with his push for ‘strategic autonomy’) while also protecting its economic, political, and democratic models from attempts at outside interference. To ready France to confront the complexities of a dangerous world, Macron announced an exceptional spending increase of €3.5 billion in 2026 and €3 billion in 2027 on top of the amounts already allocated in the Military Programming Law 2024-2030 (Loi de programmation militaire, or LPM).

A Direction of Travel

The budgetary trajectory laid out in the LPM set military spending at €53.7 billion in 2026 and €56.9 billion in 2027. With the additional funds announced by Macron, France’s defence budget would total €64 billion in 2027 (instead of 2030), effectively doubling the spending levels of 2017 when he took office. Macron also announced a subsequent update to the LPM to be unveiled in fall 2025.

President Macron evoked the need for additional funds to fill in weak spots that could include munitions stocks, drones, precision and saturation weapons, and spatial capabilities while reinforcing surface-to-air defence, electronic warfare, and the reserve forces. It would be expected that the accelerated rise in defence spending would also allow for accelerated equipment deliveries, advancing them to 2027 from 2030 for example. While leaving his prime minister the task of finding the money, Macron insisted it come from ‘increased activity and production’. He made a plea for ‘each and every person to take his or her share of the burden’: taxpayers; but also banks, private investors and businesses able to finance defence technologies and industry.

The president’s legitimacy on defence is unquestioned, and there is support – particularly on the right and far right – for these additional efforts. This more general support is met nonetheless with scepticism as to whether the increases announced by Macron will be more than marginally impactful. Some senators have questioned whether the influx of funds will be able to cover the objectives laid out in the National Strategic Review, published the day after Macron’s speech. And previously, a Senate report published in May 2025 was very critical about the feasibility of meeting the LPM’s stated aims, particularly because of insufficient budgets.

Some senators caution that €6.5 billion over the next two years would primarily serve two purposes: to fill funding gaps between the armed forces’ estimated needs as expressed during the LPM debates and the actual funds allocated; and to catch up on delayed spending (totalling an unheard of €8 billion in 2025, up from €4 billion in 2023). Sceptics warn that given these factors, the additional money will simply be too little to meaningfully impact capacity, both human and material. They also warn that while defence industry actors are ready to receive additional orders, a boost in production cannot take place over the course of a single year but rather with the assurance of orders over the next five.

Economic Difficulties 

Macron’s ‘exceptional efforts’ for the military also come at a fraught moment for the country’s fiscal health. As centrist Prime Minister François Bayrou stated when unveiling his 2026 budget - the day after Macron’s speech - France spends more taxpayer money than any other country, and its debt tops €3.3 trillion. His budgetary priority is to bring spending under control. The budget reflects this push for austerity and details across-the-board cuts in every domain except for defence. The PM’s 2026 budget calls to cut €43.8 billion (to bring the deficit to 4.6% of GDP) with a series of cost-saving measures that have been very poorly received by French voters and politicians alike: ‘bloodbath,’ ‘shameful,’ ‘demolition plan,’ ‘an organized robbery,’ ‘social war.’

Among the most notorious takeaways in French media are the suppression of two bank holidays, efforts to cut €5 billion in health spending, the non-replacement of some retiring civil servants, and a series of measures that impact pensions and government assistance (for example, not adjusting welfare for inflation, tightening unemployment benefits). These wide and deep cuts to be borne in large part (but not exclusively) by individuals only reinforce arguments, namely from the left, that the price of military spending is social protection. Recent polling shows the extent of the unpopularity of both Bayrou and his proposed budget, as nearly six out of ten French people would like to see a change in prime minister, 80% have a negative opinion of Bayrou, and almost 70% of French people consider his budget proposal to be ‘unjust and poorly aimed.’ It is no wonder why Macron’s address also included a plea to members of Parliament, imploring them not to sanction the 2026 budget proposal which would also stymie his plans to inject new defence funds.

Threats of a censure motion have already been widely circulated, just as some unions have also threatened strikes. Bayrou must present his budget bill by 1 October. If Bayrou was constrained to use Article 49.3 of the French Constitution to force the passage of the budget without a Parliamentary vote, he would most certainly face a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly. Should he fail to survive that vote and his government fall, the search for a new prime minister could last into the autumn and delay the adoption of a budget and the accompanying acceleratory measures for defence.

At this stage, Macron’s ambitions for strengthened French defence readiness are not fully dissociable from the country’s highly volatile domestic political situation: the president is hugely unpopular among the French (a IFOP poll from late June shows his approval rating at 29%), his prime minister even less so, a fierce budget fight is on the horizon, and parliament does not appear eager to readily do the president and the government any favours.

© Amy Greene, 2025, published by RUSI with permission of the author.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author's, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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