The French Defence Industrial and Technological Base (BITD), as studied by the Defence Industries Businesses (EID) survey carried out by the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, defined a relevant group of French companies to constitute the defence industries: by studying their responses to INSEE’s monthly surveys, short-term economic developments in the defence sector can be identified since 2005.

The invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army in February 2022 and the resulting geopolitical situation have led to major demands being made on the French defence industrial apparatus, in the form of material aid to Ukraine, the equipment needs of the French army and more broadly, the increased defence needs in Europe. Since the beginning of 2022, the short-term situation in the defence industry has therefore been considerably better than in the rest of industry. In particular, the opinion of defence industrialists based on their order books picked up significantly between the end of 2021 and the start of 2022 and has remained at a high level since then. The defence industry output has increased gradually and at the beginning of 2024 was 10% above its 2022 average. However, tensions surrounding supply have increased substantially, in contrast to the change in the rest of industry: supply chain difficulties are greater and the productive capacity is in greater demand...