 The moment Daniel is a senior researcher at the Centre for Security Studies at ETH in Zurich, which, as we were discussing, is an extremely highly regarded and very well-funded Swiss Institute, and he works there on national defence policies in Europe, EU military cooperation and NATO. Daniel also writes a monthly column for Carnegie's Europe Strategic Europe blog, and indeed, the clarity of Daniel's writings in regard to military and security matters is really exemplary. He previously worked at a number of institutes in Europe and the US, including the Foundation for International Relations, known as Frida, and in Brussels and Madrid. The European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris, which is also located as well in Brussels, and the Centre for European Reform in London, the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defence University in Washington and the Aspen Institute in Berlin. So he has a very broad spread and background for his studies. He's going to talk to us today about France and the future of European defence. It's clearly a pivotal week to talk about this subject, and France, of course, is pivotal in the European Union. The implications of the French presidential election for French defence policy and, indeed, for European security and defence policy will be absolutely crucial. The candidates have varying views on defence, on the amounts to be spent. Two of the candidates want to withdraw France from NATO. Will France maintain its ambition with global reach? What are the challenges for the internal security of France with regard to military operations? It will be the only nuclear power left in the EU after Brexit. Daniel, we await your thoughts on all of these issues. Again, welcome you and the floor is yours. Well, thank you very much, Mary. Of course, it's both an honour and a pleasure to be back at the IIEA. It's always lovely to be home. It's also very exciting, I think, to talk about France. Also on a personal level for me, I should say, you mentioned that I worked at the EU Institute for Security Studies in Paris. And I had five very happy years there. And when I'm asked about what was it like being an Irishman living in France, I'm reminded of words that are attributed to Samuel Beckett. Now, I don't know if Beckett really said this or not. But allegedly, when he was asked a similar question, he said, Lleolon ne ma mèr, ne la France ne ma maitres. Ireland is my mother, but France is my mistress. And I think that's how a lot of people feel as Irish people living in France. It was a great, great experience. But I think it's exciting to talk about, in general, European defence, not least because of the Brexit decision in the UK last year and the potential effects of that because of the election of Donald Trump as president in the United States. And it's particularly exciting to talk about French defence policy. Not only because of the presidential elections, we have the first round this Sunday and the various candidates of different positions on French defence policy, but also because I would argue France has probably had the most interesting national defence policy in Europe in recent years. It's been a very exciting time for French defence policy for reasons I will go into in a minute. But France is certainly crucial for the future of European defence. And whether one thinks of that on a simple cooperation perspective or whether it's through NATO, whether it's through the EU or whatever, France is definitely crucial for the future of European defence. I think it's also worth bearing in mind that France will, of course, be the strongest military power in the EU after Brexit. But we shouldn't forget that France has a very long tradition, unlike most European countries, how should I put this, of very independent strategic thinking. And in some ways, this goes back to the 1956 Suez crisis. There are other aspects to it. But if you think about the lessons that Britain and France took from the 56 Suez crisis, the lesson that Britain took was to stay as close to the United States as possible and ideally try and be Athenians advising the Romans, Athenians advising the Roman Empire. The French took an attitude more like Spartans defying the Persian Empire and decided that they should not rely on the United States. They should not have to rely on the United States for their security and defence. And partly because of that crisis, they later invested in their own independent nuclear weapons programme and, of course, left the NATO military command, which they then rejoined under President Sackwazee in 2009. But my point being that France has long had a very, very independent culture, strategic culture, compared with other European countries. And not just the UK. If you read the German security white paper of last year, there's a sentence in it that makes it very clear that Germany says that only with the United States can Europe be defended. The French may see that quite differently. And indeed have been, in some ways you could argue, a very much a Trumpian kind of ally in that they've been willing to not just spend a lot on defence, they've been willing to do a lot, and they've argued that Europeans should be much more autonomous, which seems to be some of the things that President Trump wants from Europeans. But that's something I'll come back to later. I think another aspect of French strategic culture, which is very, very important, it's an obvious point, but it's worth restating. France is a nuclear armed member, permanent member of the UN Security Council, and unlike most European countries, has a special sense of responsibility for global security, like the UK does as well, of course. This is unlike most of the Europeans. Most of the Europeans don't think as deeply about East Asian security, for example, as France does, and that makes it quite different. And of course what makes the presidential election very interesting is that the next French president, as the current president does, will wield tremendous influence, and will have tremendous say, tremendous power over French defence policy. That person will inherit the second largest European defence budget in NATO, just over 40 billion for this year. The next president may produce a new white paper outlining what France wishes to do, what its geostrategic priorities are and so on for the next five years. And I would argue that while I don't want to go into too much into... Of course, the next president will also have the power to deploy robust military force without immediate recourse to parliament, as is the case in a lot of other European countries again, if you think of Germany or if you think of Ireland for that matter, where the French president has a lot more leeway compared to other heads of government on defence policy, on using military force. Now, as I say, I don't want to go into too much detail on the candidates themselves, I'll weave in a few of their positions as appropriate, but of course we can discuss the individual programme, I think, in the Q&A a bit more if people want to do that. I think it's more interesting, frankly, to talk about the kind of structural challenges that the next president, whoever it is, will inherit, and how France may end up positioning itself internationally based on the geostrategic, political, and indeed more practical operational budgetary and so on, challenges that the next president will face. So that brings me on to, how can I put this, the geostrategic and political context. Now, in 2013, President Hollande produced a new white book on French security and defence, which despite cuts to the defence budget, of course everybody at that time was cutting their defence budget because of the economic crisis, despite cuts to the French defence budget and cuts in personnel numbers, it maintained a fairly considerable level of strategic ambition, an operational ambition by European standards. The first priority, of course, is to protect French territory, and the second priority was to contribute and protect European and North Atlantic security. But interestingly, a threat from Russia was not discussed in the 2013 document. Now, obviously, since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, there has been a lot of debate in France about how to cope with the challenge from Russia with Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine. And I think to the surprise of some outsiders, President Hollande has kept a very firm line on Russia. He cancelled the sale, for example, of mistral amphibious assault ships to Russia. France has contributed to Baltic air policing, to Black Sea maritime policing, sending troops now to the UK-led NATO battalion in Estonia, and is part of the Normandy format that has been negotiating with Russia, the Minsk-2 agreements, and so on. But President Hollande has kept a very firm line against Russian aggression and on contributing to NATO's defence. Now, in the 2013 White Paper, beyond Europe, the geostrategic priorities were narrowed down. Hollande's version narrowed down the geostrategic priorities from Sarkozy's 2008 version. Sarkozy's 2008 White Paper had a very ambitious idea that France should worry about an enormous arc of instability, a kind of a giant ozone hole in global security stretching from Africa through the Indian Ocean into Central Asia. And this was the space that France should be mainly concerned about. Well, Hollande narrowed that down to really focus on the Gulf, the Levant, North Africa, and the Sahel. So a narrower band, the south of Europe. So, after French national defence, or protecting French national territory, NATO defence came a narrower band of North Africa, Sahel, Gulf, and the Levant. But, of course, it did. The next priority was still the Indian Ocean, and it did underline the paper the potential for strategic trouble in East Asia and Southeast Asia. So it did want to emphasise that while France was narrowing its priorities geostrategically, it still wanted to keep a global outlook. This idea of France keeping a global outlook is very important, because France, essentially, in a nutshell, the phrase was in the 2013 paper, wants to be a European power with global reach. Now, there are not many other European governments that would aim to have global reach, militarily, in an effective sense, and not just because France has territories in the Pacific and indeed in Latin America, if you think of French Polynesia or you think of Guyana, French Guyana, but also because of France's role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. And indeed, Le Drian, the defence minister, despite all the problems and challenges to European security and to French security from Russia and tourism and so on, a year ago he suggested that EU governments should be sending military ships to the South China Sea to patrol the open waterways there, to ensure that those waterways stay open for our trade. Not many EU governments, certainly Germany, wouldn't propose an operation like that. And that's, again, what makes France rather unique in a European context. Now, in saying all of that, France wants to be a European power with global reach, but, of course, since the terrorist attacks during 2015 onwards, the primary focus of any government is protecting national territory. And it seems to me that, and it's worth bearing in mind that France has had an ongoing state of emergency since those 2015 terrorist attacks. And indeed, this will carry on now until the 15th of July, the day after Bastille Day this year, so it includes the upcoming presidential elections. And it's the longest domestic state of emergency since the Algerian War in the 1950s and 1960s. And the war analogy doesn't stop there because President Hollande and his ministers, like Manuel Valls, have described in very stark terms that their struggle with Islamist terrorists is a war. Now, a war on terror, a war on terrorists, to most Europeans, I think, sounds rather like the George W. Bush administration, or indeed some of the language, indeed the President Trump has used. He's also very bellicose towards ISIS. So this is rather unusual. France has essentially been on a war footing domestically to some degree. Now there are, of course, French politicians and experts like François Isbourg from the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris who are very critical of this war-like approach, arguing that it's one thing to bomb ISIS in Raqqa or Mosul in Syria and Iraq, and it's an entirely different thing to fight a war on French citizens in Saint-Denis, for instance. But certainly I think one of the major choices the next French president will have to make is do they continue with this domestic state of emergency? Do they keep that ongoing? Do they continue using bellicose language? Because it also has an impact on defence policy because some 13,000 French soldiers, French Armed Forces personnel, are deployed domestically at the moment to protect sensitive targets across France. And the war footing is being reinforced all the time by various attempted terrorist attacks, indeed, for example, to think of the terrorist attack in Nice, for example, last year. So this is having a real impact on French defence policy domestically and in the broad sense. And as a result of that, but not only because of terrorism, there is widespread political support to increase French defence spending. Now, French defence spending, just over 40 billion euro, as I said, it's about 1.8% of GDP according to NATO figures. And three of the main presidential candidates, Fian, Hamon and Macron, would like to raise it to at least 2% by 2025, more or less 2022-2025, while Marine Le Pen would like to raise it to an impressive 3%, which is, of course, any defence nerd's dream. But, of course, whether she would be able to do that is another thing. But just to put it in contrast, the average for the European members of NATO is just under 1.5%. But in general, there is widespread support to increase French defence spending. And this again is a little bit of a difference between the French debate and most of the European countries. Very few French politicians run very few serious French politicians run on a political programme to reduce defence spending or scrap France's nuclear weapons programme, which takes up a big chunk of the defence budget. And that's something I'll come back to in a minute. If you compare it, for example, members of the British Labour Party who often say, you know, we should scrap Trident in the UK because it takes up too much money, it's obsolete and so on, very few politicians in France make that kind of argument. It's a very, very different debate in that respect. Now, I mentioned already, you know, all these commitments domestically have put an added strain on French defence resources. The intensified bombing of ISIS in Iraq and Syria as well. The Charlegaul aircraft carrier was sent to the Gulf, for example, to help out with that. But that's not the only thing France has been focused on. It is contributing, as I said, to NATO's defence of efforts in Eastern Europe. But it's also been the most active European member of NATO in recent years, if you think about co-leading the intervention in Libya in 2011, and the various national interventions in the Côte d'Ivoire, in Mali, in the Central African Republic, and the ongoing operation in Mali and across the Sahel, what they call Operation Barcan, where there's about 4,000 soldiers stationed. And all in all, if you add up all the operational commitments of the French Armed Forces at the moment, these are figures from March, both domestically and internationally, France has over 30,000 deployed, personnel deployed at the moment. Now, the UK has roughly 20,000, Germany has roughly 5,000 or less, just to put it in perspective. And of course, there is a big debate and the French Chief of Staff very unusually in December, wrote an op-ed saying that this can't go on. You know, it's not just the tempo of operational commitments, it's the combination. And of course, if there are more surprises or more shocks or more crises that France has to intervene in, and as I say, it's often intervening alone in places like Mali or without much help from others, something's got to give. Because also, many of the capabilities, for example, it wasn't planned that they would be used at this level of intensity, whether it's armored cars or transport planes or whatever it may be. And many of them now are coming back with much higher attrition rates than was planned. Now, there is a plan to relieve the armed forces from their domestic duties. President Hollande wants to set up what he calls a national guard, a mix of police, gondomory, army reserve, which is also being increased, which would help a lot because also, is it the best use of the armed forces to have them deployed domestically? Not necessarily. And of course, the French defense budget has been rising and will stay at 1.8% of GDP until at least 2019. And as I mentioned, the presidential candidates, most of them want to increase it further. And to maintain France's current level of strategic ambition and current operational commitments, it will have to increase further. It's as simple as that. The problem is, the presidential candidates have not been maybe entirely honest about how difficult it may be to greatly increase the defense budget further. Because as you know, we in the Eurozone have rules about budget deficits. And while I think the average deficit, and there are economists in the room that can correct me on this, I think the average deficit in the Eurozone in 2015 was around 2.1%. But in 2016, the French budget deficit was around 3.5%, which is fairly high. And you can imagine what Wolfgang Scheuble thinks of that in Berlin. The European Commission has warned many times now that the next French president will have to implement austerity, which is part of the reasoning behind Fion's very tough economic thatcherite programme, if it really wants to meet these targets of the 3% deficit, as we have it in the Eurozone rules. And indeed, the French-owned national auditor, the Côte d'Comp, has regularly castigated the French government for exaggerating its ability to meet these targets. So there is a real question there about how to square that circle, that problem of making very difficult political choices. If you're going to spend more on defence, then you're going to be spending less on something else. And what's that going to be? Is it going to be health? Is it going to be education? Is it going to be transport? So I'm not sure the candidates have fully cracked that budgetary nut. Now, in saying that one side point, what France has been spending its budget on is interesting because even though it's not a very large budget by American standards, there's a very interesting analysis by the Rhan Corporation where they look at how France spends its budget and it's cut the numbers of the big ticket items like transport planes, fighter jets, frigates, ships in general and invested a lot more in information like, for example, satellites and drones and that sort of thing and special forces. So more mobility, more agility, more precision and being able to hit hard quickly and robustly. And I think it was Michael Sherkin from the Rhan Corporation. He described the French War as substituting quality for quantity and fighting smart and making the most of what you've got, which is not always the case in other European countries. But within the confines of the defence budget, get away now from the more general problem of the government's budget deficit, but within the defence budget itself, there are two big decisions the next president might have to make. One is to continue investing in the nuclear weapons programme, the force to frappe. Now, there's general agreement that that should be maintained. The issue is that it currently consumes around 11% of the French defence budget, which is almost double the percentage that the UK spends of its defence budget on nuclear weapons technology because the UK uses American technology or has access to American technology. The French version, because it's completely sovereign and independent, is more expensive as a percentage of the defence budget. And that is projected by the experts in Paris to potentially double over the next 20 years. So it could be eating up nearly 20% of the French defence budget within 20 years. So there's a big question there. Yes, the system will need to be upgraded if you want it maintained, but how will it be paid for? And it will consume a lot. That means spending less on other things. The second question is, there is an emerging debate in France. France already has a Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, which is actually currently being refitted. And there is an emerging debate in France should France have a second aircraft carrier. As you know, the UK will have two new aircraft carriers online from about 2020 onwards. And there had even been the idea when France and Britain signed the Lancaster House treaties in 2010 of sharing an aircraft carrier. That was later scrapped of sharing the costs and sharing the use of it. But again, the problem is if you want to invest because it would be very useful to have access to a second carrier to ensure that you always have that option. And indeed not just for France, but for Europeans as a whole. And the UK has not had access to that capability for almost a decade now. But the problem is, again, it would consume a huge portion of the defence budget. And the British aircraft carriers that are coming online from 2020 onwards, they're going to cost over $3 billion each. So there are some big choices there for the next president. And this brings me to the interesting bit, I suppose, or maybe the most relevant bit for us all, which is the international partnerships or the international relationship choices that the next French president may have to make. Now, since the British decision to leave the EU, there's been an awful lot of noise about strengthening EU military cooperation. And France and Germany will lead us all into a bright new EU military future. And I hope that will be the case. And in fairness, Berlin and Paris have made a lot of very sensible proposals. Le Drian and Ursula von der Leyen, the German Defence Minister, have made a lot of very sensible proposals on sharing the costs of more capabilities, of getting better at deploying more quickly, getting better at reacting more quickly to crises, all that sort of thing. And that's fine. And they're deepening their own bilateral military cooperation as well. Interestingly, they're buying American transport aircraft, for example, that they'll use and base together, which is quite interesting in itself. However, I'm a bit sceptical that this Franco-German energy, this post-Brexit Franco-German energy in EU military cooperation, will actually produce, how can I put this, a substantially more active EU military policies or set of EU military policies. Because in the end, yes, they agree on a lot of simple things regarding yes, it would be nice to put in sharing more capability. But they do have very different strategic cultures when it comes to deploying military force, for example. Germany will only act in coalition with others. France is prepared to act alone, if needed, as in Mali in 2013. Germany generally, and Germany, of course, prefers to act through multilateral institutions in general, although it is part of the ad hoc coalition against Daesh. And France is more in the habit, shall I say, of initiating robust military operations. Germany is not on the habit yet of initiating robust military operations. But it's not just on their different strategic cultures towards the use of force is the issue. I also would argue that very different visions towards the future of EU military cooperation, of where it should end up, of what the finality of EU military cooperation should be. And I think Brexit will reveal these differences more and more, as more is expected of them. Because while it's common for German politicians to argue that we need a European army to put it very crudly, in France, I doubt any French president would ever call for a European army. But what more French would prefer is a strong Europe de la Défense, a strong intergovernmental military alliance, which France would lead, of course. But there's a big difference between an army and an alliance, and there's a big difference between a policy and a project. The French see the EU as a strategic option that can be used when the Americans do not want to cope with a crisis or put out a fire in and around Europe. But many German politicians give the impression, and I have this impression too, from the German security white paper last year, that frankly EU military cooperation is really part of the broader integration project. So the French want a stronger military policy, the Germans want to fence as part of the broader EU integration project. And that's a big difference in their cultures. Germans call for an army, the French want an alliance. So there are some very big differences there. And if you think, for example, if you think about the money question that I mentioned earlier in EU budget deficit rules and so on, Benoit Hamon, the socialist candidate, has proposed that all French defence spending should be excluded from budget deficit calculations. Now, again, Wolfgang Scheuble and others are not very keen on that. Francois Fillon, with a rather trumpish tone, has said that France should be compensated for its military operations in Africa because they contribute to European security. So, again, the debate in France, the perception in France is that France is doing all the heavy lifting on security and defence. Germany is not doing that much, given its size, and therefore Germany should have a bit more leeway on other questions, including regarding the eurozone and budget deficit rules, which I think is a very fascinating debate. So lots of process will be agreed in Brussels, but let's see what product comes out on questions involving money. But that brings me to Brexit, because, of course, the problem for France has been, it's been kind of swinging in between or stuck in the middle between a Germany reluctant to deploy a military force and the UK reluctant to act through the EU. Because despite Brexit, the French strategic culture will remain closest to the British and the French will want to, and the next French president, will likely want to continue working with the UK on military matters because UK, Anglo-French military cooperation, I think most French defence experts would agree, is much more militarily important for European security than anything that will happen through the EU. They don't have overly high expectations of cooperation, military cooperation, in the strict military value sense with Germany, they want much more with the UK. And indeed it was striking that after the awful terrorist attacks in March in London, the day after Emmanuel Macron, who was probably the most pro-EU candidate in the presidential elections, made it very clear I don't expect much from European defence. I'm very pro the EU developing military cooperation, but let's be honest, it'll take years. So I don't just want to cooperate with Germany, I also want to cooperate with the UK. And he made that very clear, and I'm not sure this has been entirely understood or picked up in Berlin. And les rien, the French defence minister, has been at pains to say that Lancaster House and Anglo-French cooperation based on the 2010 Lancaster House treaties should be Brexit proof as he would put it. Now, that's all well and good, but of course, Anglo-French bilateral cooperation may not be immune to politics. And let's be honest, none of us expect the Brexit negotiations to be easy. It could get quite nasty, dare I say, and particularly between Paris and London, especially when it comes to the future of finance and things like that and banking and so on. And there are precedents. Yes, France and Britain signed these bilateral treaties in 2010, but when President Hollande was elected in 2012, he downgraded politically Anglo-French military cooperation in favour of Germany, because he wanted to distinguish himself from the American sac-aux-y. He wanted to show that he was different, so he wanted to focus on Germany. Now, over time that changed, and les rien has been very keen to be very pragmatic, work with Germany, work with the UK, work with everybody. But for a period Hollande was downgrading and nothing much was happening on the bilateral front between Britain and France. Interestingly though, since Brexit, there has been an effort, for example, to deepen dependence on each other for missile technology. So les rien has pushed very hard to ensure, to try and ensure that Anglo-French bilateral cooperation will continue, will deepen, they're trying to produce, for example, a combined expeditionary force of 5,000. Hasn't been used yet, but they had a very large exercise about a year ago. So this is ongoing and arguably is much more militarily significant for European security than what's going on through the EU. But of course I mentioned the Suez crisis about 500 years ago at this stage, I suppose. But I mentioned the Suez crisis of 56 and the different lessons that Britain and France took, opposing lessons, where the ghosts of Suez have been rearing their head again, since Brexit. And even before Trump was elected in November last year, you know, Michael Fallon, the British Defence Secretary in September made a speech in Paris saying, you know, essentially everything now is about NATO. And you want to work with us, with the UK, and we want to work with you, France. But all of this ultimately has to be about NATO and on reinforcing NATO. And a month later, Francois Allon makes a speech again before Trump's election, saying that basically Europeans need to learn to defend themselves. They need to realise that Americans are no longer have the same idea of defence protection, will not always be there to defend them. And therefore, Europeans really should cooperate much more closely and become much more autonomous. So very much the Suez lessons. Britain stay close to the United States, France learn to not rely on the United States, learn to defend yourself and defend for yourself as much as possible. And there is a danger that Donald Trump, his election and his administration could exacerbate those emotions, if I can put it like that, especially if the Brexit negotiations get difficult. And as we know, President Trump at times has been very favourable towards Brexit. But if there was a sense that he was trying to reinforce the UK position somehow, the French and the Germans I don't think would react very well to that. And there would be a danger then that at the NATO table, you could end up having a kind of a Euro sphere, Anglo sphere divide. And I am old enough to remember the divisions between Britain and France over the Iraq war in 2003 and they were bitter. This would potentially be even worse. The difference being that Italy and Spain this time would be on the Franco-German side with the UK and the US on the other side. Let's see, that's just speculation, we can discuss that later. But finally, I just want to say something about President Trump, not so much about the future of NATO, but more on Franco-American military cooperation. Because I think what hasn't been noticed a lot is that actually not only has France been the most active European member of NATO militarily in recent years, but the Americans have been the most supportive NATO ally. They've been the ones providing transport planes and other logistical help in Mali, for example. Not just in 2013, but since then, until now. And of course, both France and President Trump share a very strong focus on defeating ISIS. So they have that in common as well. And more generally, depending on what the Trump administration does, and I don't know what the Trump administration is going to do. So this is speculation. But there's both an opportunity and a challenge for the next French president. The opportunity is, you know, if President Trump says that Europeans need to do more, and he says they do, and they need to spend more, and we need to be able to contribute more militarily to their own security and defence. Well, France, given its leading role already, given the fact that it will be the strongest military power that is a member of both the EU and NATO, this could reinforce France's leading role on European defence. The challenge may be, though, if that means taking on more of the military burden when France is already quite stretched, that will be very difficult for the next French president to take on, unless defence spending is increased dramatically. And as I said, that brings its own problems. Of course, we should bear in mind a lot will depend on what happens in the French presidential election. Three of the candidates are, how can I put this, NATO sceptic. Melanne Sean wants to actually leave NATO. Le Pen basilates between leaving the NATO military command and leaving the alliance altogether, and Fion, at the very least, one could say, is NATO sceptical. He's not very keen on NATO. He doesn't trust the Americans entirely. And interestingly, and it's no surprise, the same three are the most Russia friendly of the three presidential candidates, which is something else to consider, because they argue that Paris should have a more constructive, cooperative relationship with Moscow, not least because of their shared focus on ISIS as well. So, to sum up, basically, the next French president will be in a strong position on defence policy in some respects, because he or she will enjoy very strong, I think, widespread domestic political support to increase defence spending, which is, and by some degree, potentially, and to deploy robust military force if it's needed. However, if France really wants to remain a European power with global reach, there are going to be some very challenging budgetary, operational capability, and relationship choices too.