France to spend $540 million on artillery propellant production

PARIS — French explosives maker Eurenco will spend €500 million (U.S. $540 million) to restart explosive powder production and boost output of artillery propellants, said French President Emmanuel Macron during a visit to the company’s site in Bergerac on Thursday.

The investments by state-owned Eurenco over the next two years will double propellant production, Macron said during his visit, timed to the kickoff of new production capacity construction. The company will also resume production of the explosive powder used to make propellant charges, after France shut down powder production in 2007 and switched to imports.

The site of the shuttered powder production had become a wasteland. The investment in Bergerac “is, for me, the image of this industrial reconquest and military sovereignty that we want for ourselves and for Europe,” Macron said. The site started production of artillery powder during the First World War.

The target is for the Bergerac site to produce 1,200 metric tons of explosive powder a year, equivalent to 500,000 modular propellant charges, the Armed Forces Ministry said in February .

France has concluded that if it wants to accelerate artillery shell production and secure supply, it needs to control the entire process, including powder, the president said. Currently, French shell production relies on powder manufactured in Sweden.

Eurenco will increase the workforce in Bergerac to 450 in the next 18 to 24 months, after already growing the number of employees to 250 from 200 previously, according to Macron.

The company was awarded about €76 million in subsidies as part of the European Commission’s Act in Support of Ammunition Production to increase production capacity in France and Sweden. Eurenco says it will boost powder production tenfold, double production capacity for modular charges by 2026, and double its ammunition and explosives loading production by 2025.

France needs to increase propellant production both to aid Ukraine as well as for its own defense, Macron said. He said the Caesar 155mm howitzers supplied to Ukraine by France and Denmark rely on propellant to be effective.

Macron added that the world has changed with Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, and said that won’t end even if the war ends tomorrow.

“There’s been a massive rearmament in Russia in recent times, and because you can see military spending and orders increasing all over Europe, and geopolitics changing all over the world,” Macron said. “We’ve set off for a long-term geopolitical and geostrategic shift, in which the defense industry will play a growing role.”

Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.

巴黎——法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙周四在参观法国炸药制造商欧伦科位于贝尔热拉克的工厂时表示，该公司将投资 5 亿欧元（5.4 亿美元）重启炸药生产，并提高火炮推进剂的产量。

马克龙在访问期间表示，国有企业欧伦科公司未来两年的投资将使推进剂产量翻一番。此次访问恰逢新产能建设启动。该公司还将恢复用于制造推进剂的炸药的生产。法国于2007年停止了炸药的生产，转而依赖进口。

废弃的火药厂旧址已成一片荒地。马克龙表示，对贝尔热拉克的投资“对我而言，象征着我们为自己和欧洲所渴望的工业复兴和军事主权”。该厂址在一战期间开始生产炮弹火药。

武装部队部在 2 月份表示，贝尔热拉克工厂的目标是每年生产 1200 公吨炸药，相当于 50 万个模块化推进剂装药。

法国总统表示，法国已得出结论，如果想要加快炮弹生产并确保供应，就必须控制包括火药在内的整个生产过程。目前，法国炮弹生产依赖于瑞典生产的火药。

据马克龙称，Eurenco公司将在未来18至24个月内将其在贝尔热拉克的员工人数增加到450人，此前该公司已将员工人数从之前的200人增加到250人。

根据欧盟委员会《支持弹药生产法案》，该公司获得了约7600万欧元的补贴，用于提升其在法国和瑞典的产能。Eurenco公司表示，计划到2026年将火药产量提高十倍，模块化装药产能翻番，并于2025年将其弹药和炸药装填量翻一番。

马克龙表示，法国需要提高推进剂产量，既是为了援助乌克兰，也是为了自身国防。他指出，法国和丹麦向乌克兰提供的凯撒155毫米榴弹炮需要推进剂才能有效发挥作用。

马克龙补充说，俄罗斯对乌克兰的侵略已经改变了世界，即使战争明天结束，这种改变也不会结束。

马克龙表示：“俄罗斯近期进行了大规模的重新武装，而且你可以看到整个欧洲的军费开支和订单都在增加，世界各地的地缘政治格局也在发生变化。我们已经踏上了长期的地缘政治和地缘战略转型之路，国防工业将在其中发挥越来越重要的作用。”

鲁迪·鲁伊滕贝格是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者。他的职业生涯始于彭博新闻社，拥有报道科技、大宗商品市场和政治方面的经验。