Emmanuel Chiva’s truths on our defense – L’Express

The war in Ukraine and the Russian threat forced France to go up in power militarily. For almost three years, Emmanuel Chiva has been working, as a general delegate for armaments, and upsets, in a good sense, a defense sector with well -established habits. With a creed: maintaining the major skills of the DGA house (Directorate General of Armament), created in 1961 to build French deterrence, while accelerating its ability to provide the equipment of all types that soldiers need, from nuclear submarines to small low-cost consumable drones. Verbatim.

“Produce faster and in mass”

For years, our major defense manufacturers, because they have not been asked for something else, above all developed extremely sophisticated weapons, with slow delivery rhythms. Until recently, we choose our wars. Today they impose themselves on us. We must therefore produce quickly, at a controlled cost and in mass, while so far the central criterion was performance. The weapons systems that we need should no longer systematically be the best in the world. They will not meet expectations if it takes three years to produce them and four years to deliver them, including the validation certification work of the DGA. These advances are made possible today thanks to the decision of the President of the Republic in 2022 to announce a transition to war economics, and by the mobilization of all the actors, both industrial and state, by the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu.

“An opportunity for Europe”

The current period, with the Trump administration, is obviously complicated, but it is also a magnificent opportunity for Europe to assert itself. The war in Ukraine did not declare any armaments. We always need artillery, soil-to-air defenses, armored vehicles, aviation. The fighting takes place in the air, on the sea and on the land, but also under the sea, in space, in the information and cyber fields. We must adapt to this modification of the geostrategic environment. The challenge is that European nations each retrogate their prerogatives in capacity choices, while seeking to dialogue and agree. Do not start doing several what we are already doing well on your own. You really have to change the model and stop doing peacekeeper, to find out which design offices or which SMEs of this or that nation will be able to benefit from such cooperation. We are not really in a time when you have to go up skills but more in production capacity.

“A better funded defense sector”

The dynamics of awareness of the financial world in favor of defense is very good news. A proactive calendar will be set up to meet the needs identified by the DGA. In the very short term, there will be funding to ensure equity and business loans. Then, thanks to banking instruments and private funds, we will promote French investments in companies which can thus remain sovereign.

“Create European champions”

European strategic autonomy involves an industrial and technological basis of sovereign and autonomous European defense. European money must go to the purchase of European equipment. The minimum threshold of 65 % of components of European origin to benefit from European money, proposed by the Commission, is very good news. In the United States, I remind you that it is 100 % of American components. There are competitions between European industrialists, but there are also between French industrialists. It is necessary to structure all this, to relocate productions if necessary and to diversify the sources of supply. A consolidation can create the European champions that we need. You have to see which country is the best on this or that type of armament so that it can cause the industries of other countries to produce it.

“Avoid problematic dependencies”

Limiting dependencies is part of our work and our expertise. This is why we count 10 600 agents at the DGA, including 7,500 in the technical function, to pay attention to the fact that, in all the elements and components which constitute a system of weapons, we do not have problematic dependencies. We also provide a big effort on raw materials, with the relocation in Europe of powder production capacities or having stocks of ore or strategic metals. Let us not forget the elephant in the room: the Itar components, of American origin and on which the United States keep a right of gaze. They are potentially likely to prevent us from using materials. As much as it is to have interoperable weapons, as much I do not wish to be itar-operable. For all that relates to our sovereign nuclear deterrent capacities for example, we guarantee not to be dependent on this type of components.

“Being allied is not to be alienated”

To build a new generation aircraft carrier as France wants to do, you will not find an electromagnetic catapult elsewhere than in the United States and, moreover, the development of a national sector is not an economically realistic hypothesis. This is called a consented and controlled dependence. On other capacities, however, we can disengage from elements or subsystems for which we are dependent. I am not saying that you have to be sovereign in everything, but simply that being allies is not to be alienated. The pooling of the A400M acquisition is a good example of European sovereignty. Faced with American disengagement, tactical transport capacities, which are based on non-European materials, can be understood differently.

“10,000 suffering jobs”

There are 10,000 jobs, from all kinds, suffering today in the world of defense – engineers, workers, technicians – that will be able to provide in order to support the development of our bitd [NDLR : l’industrie de défense]. You have to train people, be able to recruit and keep them in the long term. We also carry out this work through reservations, for the benefit of defense manufacturers. The tension on trades does not only concern professions related to artificial intelligence or cyber. We are also looking for people who are able to be welders on Naval Group construction sites. And we work with manufacturers, precisely, to find solutions.

“Partnership with the civil industry”

The use of civil industry is essential. She is used to making mounting chains, making optimization, industrial efficiency. In view of that, we have created, at the DGA, the Directorate of the Defense Industry, which is intended to be the partner of the defense industry and to create bridges with the civil industry, to allow us to benefit from the skills of the two. The dialogue takes place in a completely satisfactory way today. To develop our industrial defense tool, at the beginning of the 20th century, we already used the automotive industry, the chemical industry, in particular to make bombs in large series. We adopt this approach today. We will soon make announcements.

“Better prepare subcontractors”

It is much more necessary to consider the subcontractors of large industrialists than they were before. They can constitute as many bottlenecks, because they do not have the human resource or the necessary material. We have an example with the Franco-Italian missile Aster, which is best today and which is competitor of the American patriot. To produce it, it put thirty-six months. We managed to lower this to thirty-one months, but at the cost of a fairly fantastic effort on an incredibly complex chain of subcontracting, with plethora of essential SMEs, in Italy and France, in the development of the system. For the new version of the missile, which will be able to intercept hypersonic threats, you will have to try to do otherwise.

We work with the MBDA, Naval Group, Thales, Safran Dassault and others, to allow these subcontractors to prepare for future orders and to benefit from the advances that are given to large groups. We need systems that are compatible with the constraints of SMEs in terms of payment deadlines. I know these constraints, I directed 13 SMEs. If I had had the visibility that we give today, I could have produced a business plan that would have allowed me to better attract investors. It should not be forgotten that all these companies are all targets for our competitors. There is an increase in cyber and physical attacks on the weakest links in our system.

“If we don’t accelerate on AI …”

Artificial intelligence already allows us to have autonomy in weapons systems. Ukrainians already use AI to identify targets on the front. The only problem of AI is a risk of leveling and access. The danger is to be overwhelmed by our opponents on capacities which previously were the prerogative of the States. This is why the Minister of the Armed Forces decided to create the Ministerial Agency for Artificial Defense Intelligence, to which the DGA contributes. If we do not accelerate in this area, we risk being downgraded, it is absolutely essential. It should not be forgotten either that AI is not just algorithms, but also means of calculation. This is one of the reasons why we acquired our own supercaluler.

“In the quantum race with Proqcima”

Quantum is the real revolution. There will be a before and an after. In the field of sensors, we will be able to locate anywhere on the surface of the globe without needing, precisely, external signal. A quantum computer, on a certain number of problems and in a certain number of cases, will be able to put a few minutes, in theory, to carry out calculations that all the available computers would make the age of the universe to be resolved. France is in the quantum race with the Proqcima program, operated by the DGA and funded by France 2030.