PARIS — The key topic for the forthcoming Summer Defence University, a high-level military, political and industrial conference, will focus on winning public support for boosting French defense spending to the target 2 percent of gross domestic product, said Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a senator and former prime minister of France.
"The main target is to reach a common conviction in the French defense community, that the budgetary ambition set out as 2 percent of GDP is both necessary and difficult," he said in weekly magazine Air & Cosmos.
Raffarin, a former conservative prime minister, is chairman of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Armed Forces Committee of the Senate.
The defense conference runs Sept. 5-6, with Prime Minister Manuel Valls due to give a closing speech. France presently spends 1.5 percent of GDP on defense, while NATO has asked member states to commit 2 percent.
That 2 percent target will be adopted in the next multiyear military budget law, Raffarin said. In percentage terms, the budgetary increase is attainable but the government will need to win over French public opinion.
"In percentage terms, the figures are within reach. In real terms, it will require an effort which calls for preparation (of public opinion)," he said.
Defense spending is the third item in the French budget, after education and repaying the national debt. The present six-year military budget law runs to 2019.
The British vote in favor of leaving the European Union, or Brexit, has significant consequences for the EU and even more so for European defense, in view of the UK’s high-level military capability, Raffarin said. Britain and France military cooperation has advanced to a "very high quality," he added.
A Brexit will have an impact on defense and security of the continent, he said. "But basically this new factor puts us under the need to build a strengthened defense strategy for continental Europe."
British Defence Minister Michael Fallon is due to attend the defense conference.
Brexit is the decisive factor for France in a new "mobilization," which covers domestic and international defense and security, Raffarin said. European allies, including Germany, are boosting defense spending following a review of their military strategy.
All the candidates for forthcoming primaries for the Les Républicains conservative party support the 2 percent target, but the difference will be in the details of their commitments, he said. The defense conference offers a forum for the chiefs of staff, particularly the chief of the Defence Staff, Army Gen. Pierre de Villiers, to set out their views on the financial needs of the forces.
French forces are now stretched to their limits, Raffarin said. Any new intervention will hurt present operations and require further funding.
Libya is seen as a potential military campaign.
"I am paying close attention to the situation in Libya and the possible consequences on North Africa, which poses a high-level threat for France," he said.
French forces are deployed in the Barkhane operation across the Sahel sub-Saharan Africa region, the Chammal mission in Iraq and Syria, and the Sentinelle domestic security measure.
France should consider playing a full stabilization role after a foreign military intervention, according to a Senate report published in July. Any military overseas operation should be set in a "global approach" that takes into account civic consequences and slow economic recovery of the country concerned, Air & Cosmos reported.
The Senate report called for the secretary general for defense and national security (SGDNS) to conduct a strategic review and appoint a special representative to steer civil operations after an intervention. The SGDNS reports to the prime minister rather than the defense minister.
Nicolas Sarkozy, a former conservative president who is standing as the presidential candidate for Les Républicains, told the conservative daily Le Figaro in May he would raise defense spending to 1.85 percent of GDP, or €35 billion (US $39 billion), in 2018, €41 billion in 2022 and hit the 2 percent target by 2025. That would lead to an extra €32 billion in the next five-year presidency, he said.
France is running a large deficit and is under instruction from the EU to slash that macroeconomic debt. Presidential elections are due to be held in May and April.
