France unveils its Air and Space Army and enters the space race
Defense Minister Florence Parly will be present at the ceremony presenting the new logo of the French Air and Space Force.
Here, during a press conference on November 26, 2019 in Paris.
Christophe ARCHAMBAULT / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
The Air Force, renamed “Air and Space Army”, unveils its new logo on Friday, September 11, afternoon, a symbolic step in the gradual deployment of the French military space strategy.
This is done in a context of increasingly fierce global competition.
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It is a constant: all the great nations
now have their "
Space force
"
.
Paris therefore also has
a new Space Command
, responsible for
to guarantee French space sovereignty, indicates its chief General Michel Friedling.
According to him, this is done in an environment where
state
and private
actors
are
increasing investments
: “
The overall amount of spending has doubled in ten years.
Military investments have gone from $ 17 billion to $ 30 billion all together in space.
What is particularly interesting is that China has increased its investments eightfold, from $ 0.8 billion to $ 7 billion in ten years.
And the number of its annual launches by three.
It is still quite considerable.
"
In the exosphere
, threats are also increasing
: aggressive postures and blinding satellite programs, even kamikaze satellites.
There is a risk, underlines General Friedling, of seeing space gradually becoming
a battlefield
.
“
Space has become for us an area of confrontation, the fifth area after land, air, sea and cyber,
” he says
.
So this strategy aims to strengthen France's strategic autonomy with two main lines
: first to respond to emerging threats and then to defend our space interests if necessary
”.
To achieve this, France plans to devote 5 billion euros to Space Command by 2025.
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