Why France is Preparing for War

France’s armed forces are one of the most powerful and combat tested in Europe. But there’s one problem. Two and a half decades ago when they had their last major transformation it shrank their military’s size and budget.

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Video Edited by: Michael Michaelides

French defense spending as a percentage of their GDP from 1960 to today going from 5.4% in 1960 to 1.8% in 2019. A similar trend happened throughout most western countries. This made perfect sense at the time the Soviet Union had just collapsed and it seemed the world had never been safer.

To kick start their defense industry back into high gear France's President Emmanuel Macron recently unveiled a new 6 year defense budget which will now total $450 billion dollars, representing nearly a 40% increase. France is 6th in the world for defense spending by Purchasing power parity and climbing. But you might be surprised to learn the new plan doesn’t call for any major increase in force size, strangely it doesn’t ask for a massive boost in production of new tanks. This has caused a major debate both inside the French defense establishment and outside observers about whether the additional funds are being spent effectively. So what capabilities and weapon systems will French Gen. Pierre Schill actually invest in? And how is French President Macron attempting to position himself as one of the top leaders of European Security?

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Task & Purpose is a military news and culture oriented channel. We want to foster discussion about the defense industry.

[pAcsJs]

That Napoleon movie got France all riled up 😂

[gark]

France is not investing into tanks and land troops, because that's where Germany and Poland are investing. France role in a war where the EU is fighting alone would be nuclear deterrence, providing 1 carrier strike group (realistically for use in the Atlantic or North Sea) and keep trade line open with the UK and the US.
Italy would focus on securing the Med (and as you can see, Italy is investing most of its resources on the Navy, keeping 2 "carriers" capable of launching F35B) and Germany and Poland would be the one providing the bulk of tanks (Germany) and mechanized infantry (Poland will have one if the largest mobile infantry corps in the world in a couple of years time) for the main front.
It's the first time I'm aware of where European nations are preparing to fight against a foreign enemy and splitting the roles so clearly.

[paulbehan]

Very well done !!! 👏 you were right on the money !! Very well explained

[billholemo]

Great, fast moving concise report!!😊 Bravo!!

[dl]

Um... France didn't surrender in World War One. They DID get their @$$€$ handed to them in the Franco-Prussian War, and were eager for a re-match, which we know as World War One. That re-match didn't exactly follow the French script, shall we say, but they didn't surrender.

[TheDCGuitar]

The French and the polish are the only ones who accept that the Americans won’t paytheir defense bills forever and took matters into their own hands. I respect that a lot. Edit: what a lively thread. Didn’t think there would be this much engagement. I should’ve written this better. When I say “only ones” I mean out of the heavyweight economies in Europe. Plenty of the smaller nations especially in Eastern Europe definitely take their security seriously. We love you guys across the pond. It’s why we help. We just grow tried of being told how inferior our quality of life is when so much of our tax money is going to funding the security of larger nato countries who don’t even take our contributions seriously.

[andrewsolnitzky]

Wait wait wait…. Did you say France had over 1000 battleships in 1991??? I think you might just mean boats in the water and are using the term battleships out of context

[Canute_]

Can people stop calling almost all warships "battleship"?

The Iowa class are the last battleships and they're museum ships, not active service ships.

[rubenramirez]

You just seem to keep getting better and better. I consistently watch your videos.Thanks for the education.

[ronaldhunt]

For the love of God please do Germany next, you know the country that went from over 7000 tanks during the same period to less than 300 today. The same country that became absolutely dependent on Russian energy while demanding the US protect them from Russia at the same time. The fifth largest GDP that can not even meet the 2 percent of GDP they agreed to.

[conservativemike]

I flew with the French Air Force during a lengthy deployment, and found them both highly skilled and intellectually impressive.

[israeljudah]

Excellent, informative, educational, and interesting content. I'm now a new subscriber. Looking forward to seeing more videos. I will inform others of this channel.
Excellent Work my friend 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Continue On✌🏽2024-til

[JamesJeffersonRecords]

Remember when all those French generals warned Macron about the migration problem, and how France would have a national security problem, even a civil war in just a few years?

It’s amazing that problem suddenly disappeared.

[mathieu]

As a French citizen and quite aware of what’s been going on with our army I can tell this video is pretty accurate and extensive. Well done. 👍

[edl]

Can you do a similar analysis of the British military? Their ground forces are even smaller.

[sameerpatel]

"Our enemies are about to find out why we don't have healthcare!" GOLD. Love it.

[LtSkEt]

I know the French get a lot of shit, with jokes about them surrendering and yes, as an American I find them funny but, France has been one of America’s oldest allies and the French are one of the strongest military forces in Europe. They make really great and reliable weapons, and as Cappy mentioned, France is the only European country with its own Nuclear Arsenal and I’m glad we’re on the same side.

[blakkill]

Bonjour ; pour une fois que je n'entends pas du "French bashing", cela me fait particulièrement chaud au coeur.
Un grand merci donc pour Task & Purpose, d'autant plus que cette video est particulièrement bien documentée et commentée !
BRAVO !

[arichster]

Outstanding. So important to understand the realities of such a critical ally. Merci.

[MrKaNeEraV]

Has a frenchman myself, I want to thank you for the accuracy, neutrality and non-biased informations of your video. We are pretty used of seeing foreign media undermining our country because of what happened in WW2. Our army was really strong and capable of giving a good fight to the germans but our leaders at the time were idiot and we lost so quickly only because of their stupid defense decision ( I'm not saying we were gonna beat Germany's ass all by ourself but at least we were capable of blocking them for awhile )
So yeah thank you for being a true unbiased journalist 🇫🇷