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

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.