French President Emmanuel Macron called on Thursday for a “sustainable” effort to scale up arms production after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as he laid the foundation stone for a much-needed gunpowder factory.
“In the long term we are looking at a geopolitical, geostrategic change in which defense industries will play an increasing role,” he said.
He spoke as he visited the site of a future gunpowder factory being built in the southwestern town of Berzerak to address a shortage of propellant charges needed to supply Ukraine with artillery shells.
“The effort here is urgent,” he said.
“We have to be fast, hard, mass produce,” he said, adding that the effort must also be “sustainable.”
Eurenco, a leading European supplier of gunpowder and explosives, is set to open the Bergerac plant in 2025 and produce 1,200 tonnes of propellant per year.
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The defense team says it has orders to last until 2030.
The site had been used to produce gunpowder since 1915 during World War I, but was decommissioned in 2007 due to a lack of enough orders.
Eurenco CEO Thierry Francou said these had started to rise before the start of the war in Ukraine, but that the invasion was definitely “a growth accelerator”.
European nations have pumped billions in defense spending and military aid since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Macron in June of that year called for a boost to defense budgets in Europe, saying France was in a “war economy”.
Paris last year ordered 20 billion euros ($21 billion) worth of military equipment, a third more than in previous years.
Source: AFP