French defense minister kicks off ‘pact’ with industry in rush to field naval drones

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook

Share on X (Opens in new window) X

Share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky

Share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit

Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn

Share using Native tools Share Copied to clipboard

Share on Mail (Opens in new window) Mail

French Defense Minister Catherine Vautrin, center-left, speaks with delegates at the Euronaval defense exhibition near Paris on Nov. 3, 2026. (French Ministry of Defense)

PARIS — The French government is kicking off a new “pact” with the defense industry aimed at fostering a national ecosystem of drone makers that can quickly make new equipment tailored to its navy’s requirements.

Minister of the Armed Forces Catherine Vautrin announced the initiative on Nov. 3, the first day of the Euronaval defense trade show, describing it as a novel mechanism for “converging” the needs of the armed forces.

The plan is akin to what French officials have been doing in the race to field new aerial drones, a technology that has become a fixture so central to modern combat that militaries worldwide are reorganizing to incorporate unmanned platforms.

In a statement, the French defense ministry highlighted some of the technology areas that could benefit from the new government-industry framework aimed at naval drones. For example, unmanned platforms will play a role in removing sea mines, collecting hydrographic and oceanographic data and exploring the ocean floor at great depths.

“Mastering” the seabed, as the original French wording goes, has been a fixture in the country’s naval-technology strategy for some years. The makeup of much of the seabed worldwide remains a blind spot for governments, just as critical infrastructure installed there — data cables and pipelines — has become a target for sabotage and outright warfare in the extreme underwater domain.

To that end, one agenda item announced at the trade show by French defense officials related to the naval drone framework is the purchase of a second ROV Deep Sea drone from LD Travocean, which, weighing 3,600 kilograms, can dive to 6,000 meters. The first ROV, ordered in 2024, completed qualification trials for its intended depth last week.

Related announcements include the planned acquisition of eight A18 countermine robots from Exail, a multi-sensor underwater drone for finding and characterizing sea mines before their eventual removal.

The French Navy will also buy a second unmanned combat underwater vehicle from Naval Group — this one a “bit longer” than the first test vehicle, coming in at over 10 meters in length and weighing in at more than 10,000 kilograms, a ministry spokesman told Defense News. The massive drone is meant to stay in the water for weeks at a time.

Defense officials also signed a deal with Naval Group and MBDA here to equip France’s FDI frigates with more Aster interceptor missiles. That entails retrofitting the onboard firing capability from 16 missiles to 32 on existing frigates, and ensuring new ones are built with the 32-launch-cell magazine baked in.

Sebastian Sprenger is associate editor for Europe at Defense News, reporting on the state of the defense market in the region, and on U.S.-Europe cooperation and multi-national investments in defense and global security. Previously he served as managing editor for Defense News. He is based in Cologne, Germany.

分享至 Facebook（在新窗口中打开） Facebook

分享至 X（在新窗口中打开）X

在 Bluesky 上分享（在新窗口中打开）Bluesky

分享到 Reddit（在新窗口中打开）

在领英上分享（在新窗口中打开）领英

使用原生工具分享 已复制到剪贴板

分享至邮件（在新窗口中打开）邮件

2026年11月3日，法国国防部长凯瑟琳·沃特兰（左二）在巴黎附近的欧洲海军防务展上与代表们交谈。（法国国防部）

巴黎——法国政府正与国防工业启动一项新的“协议”，旨在培育一个能够快速制造符合其海军需求的新型无人机制造商的国家生态系统。

武装部队部长凯瑟琳·沃特林于 11 月 3 日，即欧洲海军防务展的第一天，宣布了这项倡议，并将其描述为一种“融合”武装部队需求的新机制。

该计划类似于法国官员在竞相部署新型无人机方面所做的工作，无人机技术已成为现代战争的核心组成部分，以至于世界各国军队都在进行重组，以纳入无人平台。

法国国防部在一份声明中重点介绍了部分可从旨在发展海军无人机的政府-产业合作新框架中受益的技术领域。例如，无人平台将在清除水雷、收集水文和海洋数据以及探索深海海底等方面发挥作用。

正如法语原文所言，“掌控海底”多年来一直是法国海军技术战略的核心内容。全球大部分海底的构成对各国政府而言仍是一个盲点，而安装在那里的关键基础设施——数据电缆和管道——也已成为水下极端环境中破坏和战争的目标。

为此，法国国防官员在贸易展上宣布了一项与海军无人机框架相关的议程，即从LD Travocean公司采购第二台深海遥控潜水器（ROV）。该潜水器重3600公斤，可下潜至6000米。第一台ROV于2024年订购，已于上周完成了其预定深度的鉴定试验。

相关公告包括计划从 Exail 公司采购 8 台 A18 型反水雷机器人，这是一种多传感器水下无人机，用于在最终清除水雷之前发现和识别水雷。

法国海军还将从法国海军集团采购第二艘无人作战水下航行器——据国防部发言人向《防务新闻》透露，这艘航行器比第一艘测试艇“稍长一些”，长度超过10米，重量超过1万公斤。这艘巨型无人航行器旨在一次在水下停留数周。

法国国防官员还与法国海军集团和MBDA公司签署了一项协议，为法国FDI护卫舰配备更多“紫菀”（Aster）拦截导弹。该协议包括将现有护卫舰的舰载导弹发射能力从16枚提升至32枚，并确保新建造的护卫舰在建造时就配备32联装发射单元的弹药库。

塞巴斯蒂安·斯普伦格是《防务新闻》欧洲版副主编，负责报道该地区的防务市场状况，以及美欧在防务和全球安全领域的合作和多国投资。此前，他曾担任《防务新闻》执行主编。他现居德国科隆。