{"id":9390,"date":"2026-04-27T04:57:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/9390\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T04:57:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T04:57:34","slug":"frances-far-right-wants-more-defense-spending-just-not-the-european-kind-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/9390\/","title":{"rendered":"France\u2019s far right wants more defense spending \u2014 just not the European kind\u00a0 \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Far-right lawmakers want to strengthen the air force with 20 more Rafale fighter jets, the navy with three more frigates and 10 more carrier-based Rafales. The party&#8217;s lawmakers are also keen to make land forces stronger and boost France\u2019s space capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The party did not, however, spell out how it would pay for the extra defense spending; the government is eyeing spending cuts to bring its budget deficit under control.<\/p>\n<p>One party official close to Bardella said the money would come from &#8220;lowering public spending.\u201d A National Rally lawmaker said potential savings include immigration policy, state agencies, the French contribution to the EU budget and healthcare for undocumented migrants.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another challenge is that most of the party&#8217;s amendments were rejected by other political groups. It doesn&#8217;t have a majority in parliament, so it would have to cobble together a coalition even if its candidate wins next year&#8217;s presidential vote. That might make it harder for the far-right party to undertake an immediate shift from Macron&#8217;s policies.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>The next parliamentary election is in theory scheduled for 2029, but the next president is widely expected to call a snap election next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>No EU defense spending<\/p>\n<p>National Rally wants European arms-buying preferences <a href=\"https:\/\/www.assemblee-nationale.fr\/dyn\/17\/amendements\/2630\/CION_DEF\/DN270\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">to be replaced<\/a> by those that favor France, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.assemblee-nationale.fr\/dyn\/17\/amendements\/2630\/CION_DEF\/DN338\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">including<\/a> for early-warning systems, deep strike capabilities, air defense and space. Overall, far-right lawmakers said they wanted to scrap many <a href=\"https:\/\/www.assemblee-nationale.fr\/dyn\/17\/amendements\/2630\/CION_DEF\/DN461\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">European projects<\/a> such as the European Long-Strike Approach on deep-strike capabilities, the European Patrol Corvette program, the FCAS jet and the MGCS tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Far-right lawmakers want to strengthen the air force with 20 more Rafale fighter jets, the navy with three&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[794,7408,735,7409,36,7410,7411,7412,5,282,65,4313,3954,2645,3672,738,799,958,3522,803],"class_list":["post-9390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-air-defense","tag-armaments","tag-defense","tag-defense-budgets","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-eu-budget","tag-european-defense","tag-european-defense-policy","tag-france","tag-french-politics","tag-germany","tag-industry","tag-jordan-bardella","tag-marine-le-pen","tag-mgcs","tag-military","tag-munitions","tag-space","tag-tanks","tag-war-in-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}