France to Spend €63.4 Billion on Defense in 2027 as Euronaval Speech Highlights Naval Drones

French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin told the opening of the Euronaval trade show in Paris that the 2027 draft budget will push defense spending to €63.4 billion, a €6.5 billion increase over 2026. Vautrin called the rise “historic.”

Euronaval opened its 30th edition on November 3-6 at Paris Nord Villepinte. In her speech, Vautrin summed up France’s ambition to retain independent decision-making and freedom of action on the global stage with the phrase “to be feared, in order to remain free.”

The minister said modernization investment is being directed in particular toward naval uncrewed systems and munitions programs. A naval drone initiative announced this year aims to accelerate the integration of autonomous systems alongside crewed warships. France’s defense procurement agency, the DGA, has defined three categories: tactical drones for escort and protection, endurance drones for intelligence and surveillance, and special-action drones that include remotely operated naval munitions.

A concrete step was also taken in mine countermeasures. Over the summer, the DGA ordered 12 additional surface and underwater drone systems as part of the SLAM-F program, aimed at strengthening uncrewed mine-warfare capability. The order confirms France’s shift toward autonomous platforms for mine countermeasure operations.

The 2027 draft budget was submitted to the National Assembly and Senate in October; the text has not yet been adopted, and a vote is expected this month. If the draft is rejected, the result would not be a cut but a freeze — a scenario that could delay the rollout of the additional €6.5 billion.

Vautrin also stressed that procurement will prioritize European-made systems, citing Greece as a successful example of that approach. She pointed to the partnership with Sweden on missile, aerospace and naval capabilities, framing the shared goal as mutual strategic autonomy. Cooperation with Belgium and the Netherlands on new mine-warfare ships also featured in her remarks.

France’s move can be read as part of a broader European trend of rising defense spending. President Macron’s earlier pledge to double the defense budget for nuclear deterrence and conventional forces by 2027 has now taken concrete shape in Vautrin’s figures.

Macron’s March speech on nuclear strategy, in which he announced an increase in the nuclear warhead stockpile in Brittany, follows the same strategic line as Vautrin’s “to be feared” framing today. That continuity suggests France is pursuing nuclear deterrence and conventional naval capability strengthening on parallel tracks, with today’s Euronaval remarks giving concrete shape to the naval dimension of that dual strategy.

The mine-warfare ship cooperation with Belgium and the Netherlands shows that sabotage risks to critical North Sea and Channel infrastructure have become a shared procurement agenda among NATO allies. Trilateral projects of this kind let participating navies rally around a common platform without any single country bearing the full design and production cost alone — a model France appears keen to extend to naval drones as well.

For Türkiye, France’s budget and program acceleration for naval uncrewed systems opens a comparable field of competition to the unmanned naval platforms shown by ASELSAN, STM and Pasifik Teknoloji at the SAHA exhibition in May 2026. European navies turning toward autonomous mine warfare and escort drones is also a market signal that could raise the priority Turkish industry gives this segment in its export strategy.

In the remaining days of Euronaval, French industry is expected to announce the suppliers selected for the DANAE armed surface drone program. That decision will be the first concrete indicator of how Vautrin’s budget framework translates into actual procurement on the ground.

Sources

• Breaking Defense, “France investing in naval power as military ambition is ‘to be feared’: Armed forces minister”, November 3, 2026 (https://breakingdefense.com/2026/11/france-investing-in-naval-power-as-military-ambition-is-to-be-feared-armed-forces-minister/) — primary source for Vautrin’s statements, budget figures and program details.
• Defence-UA, “France to spend €63.4 billion on defense in 2027 ahead of schedule but is it enough?” (https://en.defence-ua.com/news/france_to_spend_634_billion_euros_on_defense_in_2027_ahead_of_schedule_but_is_it_enough-15135.html) — secondary source confirming the 2027 budget figure.