France is world's second biggest arms exporter, just ahead of Russia: report

According to the latest findings of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri,) France’s arms exports increased by 47 percent between 2014 –18 and 2019 –23 and for the first time it was the second biggest arms exporter, just ahead of Russia. 

"France itself is striving towards what is called a 'strategic autonomy,' Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher with Sipri told RFI. "This means being able to use force when France likes to do that without necessarily needing the support of others".

"France wants to have their own military equipment. And to be able to sustain an arms industry that can then cater for that French demand, an arms industry which can do that in an affordable way, it is necessary for France to also find export customers for its arms," he says.

This explains why Paris is providing a lot of support to the French arms industry to facilitate the export of arms, he says.

Recently French President Emmanuel Macron gave a red-carpet reception to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is an avid buyer of France's Rafale fighter jets, making France India's second largest arms supplier after Russia.

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Meanwhile, Russia's arms exports are in a slump and had already nosedived before 2022 war with Ukraine, says Wezeman.

One main reason is that China, Russia's main buyer, is now able to produce high-tech weapons by itself, and doesn't need Russia anymore.

India is diverting to France and the US because those weapons are of better quality. India is also edging closer to the US "in light of the fact that both countries consider China as a threat," he says.

But more pressing reasons for Russia's sales slump may be the war itself: Moscow badly needs weapons for its own use against Ukraine and it is struggling with international sanctions. 

"It is harder for Russia to obtain components which it needs from abroad to build its own arms," according to Wezeman, while countries that buy Russian arms risk sanctions too. 

Donations

On the import side, the war in Ukraine itself has become crucial for the global arms trade.

"Ukraine itself has received a lot of arms as donations from European states and from the US," says Wezeman.

"This contributes to growth in arms imports into Europe as a region. To compensate for the arms donated to Ukraine, and possibly driven by an increased fear for the war next door, European states are "heavily investing in building up their armed forces, and very often that involves very significant arms imports too," he says.

But the growth of weapon imports into Europe started earlier.

"Most of the weapons that have been ordered were in direct reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014," says Wezeman, and were increased after the 2022 invasion.

"Most of the contracts signed since will result in deliveries in coming years," and Wezeman expect figures to continue rising.  

Limited success

NGOs and civil society groups have attempted to stem global arms sales but with mixed success, says Wezeman. 

In France, "it doesn't appear to have a particularly large success, as can be witnessed by the fact that France has been very successful in selling arms to some of the more controversial destinations in the Middle East, in recent years, whether that's Egypt or Saudi Arabia or the UAE," he says.

This in spite of hard-hitting reports by NGOs like Disclose, which exposed French arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which they said were used in its war against Yemen. 

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However, last month a court in the Netherlands ordered the government to block all exports of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel over concerns they were being used to violate international law during the war in Gaza.

Overall, Wezeman says, "the effects of NGOs to put more restrictions on restrictions on arms sales have only very long-term and very slow effects in only a limited number of states."

Meanwhile, China's propaganda mouthpiece Global Times was quick to summarise that "the US and Western European countries represented 72 percent of global arms exports in 2019 – 23, as reported by Sipri.

While the West hypes up the "China threat," it's clear who's exporting more uncertainty to the world," the newspaper said.