France Sold €21.2 Billion of Weapons in 2025 — and a Quarter of It Went to the EU
France booked €21.2 billion in defence export orders in 2025, clearing the €21 billion mark for a second consecutive year. The figure comes from the annual arms export report the Ministry of the Armed Forces submits to Parliament.
The headline number is flat against 2024. What has changed is where the orders come from.
The sectors
Aeronautics accounted for 40 percent of orders, naval construction for 19 percent and land armaments for 12 percent. The fastest-growing line was missiles, up 15 percent year on year — a direct reflection of European armies rebuilding air defence and guided munitions stockpiles they had allowed to thin over two decades of expeditionary operations.
The contracts
- 26 Rafale M carrier fighters to India
- Two Scorpène-class submarines to Indonesia
- One frigate to Greece
- H225M Caracal helicopters to Morocco
- SAMP/T and VL MICA air defence systems to Denmark
- CAESAr howitzers to Slovenia and Croatia
- SCORPION programme vehicles to Belgium and Luxembourg
- MISTRAL air defence missiles through a European consortium
The European shift
Twenty-seven percent of orders — roughly €5.7 billion — came from EU member states. For an industry that built its export model on the Gulf, North Africa and Asia, that is a structural change rather than a good year.
The largest EU customers were Greece (above €1 billion), Denmark (€998 million), Belgium (€673 million) and Romania (€608 million). German purchases doubled to €526 million, the highest in a decade — notable given how much of European defence-industrial politics consists of Paris and Berlin competing for the same programmes.
The number the report cannot argue away
The ministry framed the results as evidence of “partners’ confidence in French industrial capabilities,” while conceding that rising global military spending explains part of the picture.
One comparison in the report undercuts the celebration. The United States supplies 48 percent of Europe’s defence imports. France supplies 6.2 percent. Every argument about European strategic autonomy runs into that ratio, and no single year of record orders moves it far.
Sources
- French Ministry of the Armed Forces, annual report to Parliament on arms exports (2026 edition)
- Opex360, analysis of the report data
