Alexandre Chauveau with AFP / Photo credits: FREDERIC SCHEIBER / HANS LUCAS / HANS LUCAS VIA AFP 9:51 a.m., March 1, 2024

The French Ministry of the Armed Forces will order 2,000 remotely operated munitions (MTO) of French design in the coming weeks, the first 100 of which are intended to be delivered to Ukraine by this summer, Sébastien Lecornu announced on Thursday.

A return to the war economy, as the Minister of the Armed Forces calls for.

Vladimir Putin once again raised the nuclear threat in his speech to the Nation on Thursday.

An address to the Russian people in which he renewed his warnings against the West.

A response to Emmanuel Macron who, at the start of the week, mentioned the possible sending of Western troops to Ukraine.

Traveling to Toulouse, Sébastien Lecornu called not to confuse the attacker and the attacked.

The Minister of the Armed Forces visited a drone manufacturing company, an illustration of the war economy he is calling for.

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“We have almost doubled the production workforce”

Inside the hangar, an assembly line and drones with a wingspan of up to four meters, displayed like trophies.

In a few months, the company will have delivered 300 to Ukraine thanks to the increase in production rates.

"This flies in Ukraine. It weighs 15 kg, it takes 3 kg of payload and it can go 50 km and it flies even in the event of GPS jamming. On the largest drones, we went from four drones per month to 12 drones per month. We have almost doubled the production workforce, the purchase of tools and this has increased all the activity for our subcontracting chain which is local", explains Bastien Mancini, president of Delair .

2,000 French kamikaze drones ordered

In cooperation with the French arms giant Nexter, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces will order 2,000 remotely operated munitions (MTO) (kamikaze drones) of French design in the coming weeks, the first 100 of which are intended to be delivered urgently. to Ukraine by this summer, Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced Thursday.

The distribution between the French army and the Ukrainian needs of the remaining 1,900 has not been specified.

“These are essential drones on the battlefield. By definition, they make it possible to preserve the life of the soldier since, like all droneization, they make it possible to teleport risk and demonstrate precision,” said the Minister of the Armed Forces.

Objective cost of each drone: 30,000 euros, more than ten times cheaper than an anti-tank missile.

Currently facing a shortage of shells, kyiv is using drones loaded with explosives on a large scale, particularly small drones from the civilian market DIYed to carry an explosive charge.

Paris intends in particular to take advantage of the feedback provided by the use of these drones in Ukraine to improve protection technologies against electronic warfare and GPS jamming massively used by Russian forces.

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“A significant catch-up effort” for the French armies

For Sébastien Lecornu, these first investments in MTOs "are part of an important catch-up effort for our armies" while France is lagging behind in the development of drones.

Last year, seeing the massive use in Ukraine of these MTOs, already used during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Paris placed an emergency order for nearly a hundred American Switchblade tele-operated munitions. 

The order that the ministry is preparing to place is part of the project called Colibri aimed at developing an MTO capable of operating within a radius of five kilometers for a unit cost of less than 20,000 euros.

It will have passed through two consortia bringing together a drone manufacturer and a pyrotechnics specialist, on one side Delair and Nexter, and on the other the drone manufacturer Novadem and MBDA.

The call for projects is however open to other potential competitors.