France wants to force arms manufacturers to speed up to help Ukraine

French law allows you to requisition stocks or order companies to give priority to certain orders.

French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said he was ready to use his powers to requisition industrial capacity or impose priorities on weapons manufacturers in order to speed up the production of weapons and shells needed on the battlefield in Ukraine and other countries, writes Reuters.

“These issues… are on the table,” Lecornu told a news conference, adding that inventories and production lines are particularly tight on air defense missiles and artillery shells.

The French minister explained that he could requisition stocks or order companies to give priority to certain orders, citing MBDA’s Aster missiles as a potential case for such a move.

Foreign demand for French-made weapons has been strong, especially for countermeasures, artillery and radar systems used in Ukraine, Lecornu said, but the country’s defense industry is struggling to keep up.

“We missed out on certain contracts with Eastern European countries, for which the criterion of delivery time is more important than price,” Lecornu emphasized.

He referred to “what the law allows the minister and the Delegate General for Armaments (DGA) to do if the situation is unsatisfactory in terms of production rates and deadlines,” writes Le Figaro.

It is noted that the Minister of the Armed Forces relies on the law on military programming for 2024-2030, which was promulgated in August. It provides that in the event of “an actual or suspected threat to an activity essential to the life of the nation, the protection of the population, the integrity of the territory or the stability of the institutions of the Republic, or such as justifies the fulfillment of the international defense obligations of the State, the requisition of any person, natural or legal, as well as all goods and services needed to combat it can be decided by decree of the Council of Ministers.”

Lecornu “does not rule out that this will be done in the coming weeks.”

(C)UNIAN 2024