France's 2025 Arms Exports Hold at EUR 21.2 Billion — Missiles Up 15 Per Cent, EU Customers 27 Per Cent
Paris, 13 August 2026
Key points
- The Ministry of the Armed Forces' annual report to Parliament puts 2025 arms-export orders at EUR 21.24 billion, against EUR 21.59 billion in 2024 — the second consecutive year above the EUR 20 billion threshold, and marginally down
- Aeronautics about 40 per cent of orders (26 Rafale M for the Indian Navy), naval 19 per cent (two Scorpène Evolved for Indonesia, a fourth FDI for Greece), missiles 18 per cent, land 12 per cent; missiles were the fastest-growing sector at +15 per cent year on year
- EU customers took about 27 per cent — EUR 5.68 billion — led by Greece (EUR 1,097 million), Denmark (EUR 999 million), Belgium (EUR 673 million), Romania (EUR 609 million) and Germany (EUR 526 million, its highest in a decade); Ukraine EUR 781 million
- Top customer overall: India, EUR 6.9 billion; Asia about 43 per cent of orders. Deliveries reached EUR 9.64 billion, up from EUR 8.18 billion
- The report calls Denmark's selection of SAMP/T NG "historic" — the system's first export success — alongside VL MICA and a multi-country Mistral order
France's 2025 arms-export orders held at EUR 21.2 billion, the report to Parliament published on 13 August shows, with missiles the fastest-growing line and European customers a quarter of the book.
The headline is stability: 2025 is within two per cent of 2024 and both years sit far above 2023's EUR 8.2 billion. The composition moved. India alone accounts for a third of the total on the Rafale M order, which is why aeronautics carries 40 per cent; but the sector the ministry singles out for growth is missiles, on the strength of Danish SAMP/T NG and VL MICA, and Mistral orders from Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Romania and Oman. Deliveries — the lagging series — rose 18 per cent to EUR 9.6 billion, and the base of contracts under EUR 200 million grew to about EUR 7 billion. The ministry issued 4,113 export licences.
The European share, 27 per cent, is what the report calls the 2022–2025 average — a quarter of the French book, in other words, is now bought by EU states, and what they buy is led by air defence.
The European quarter is the number to hold against the year's political argument. Berlin's examination of Macron's SAMP/T NG co-production offer (Großwald recorded it) and Copenhagen's SAMP/T NG selection (recorded here) are the same file seen from the customer side; the report shows what it is worth to Paris in a year when European rearmament and Buy European rules are being written into SAFE. Großwald carried the report in Signal No. 123. Two things the report cannot show: whether the 2025 European orders convert into deliveries before the SAFE windows close, and whether India's weight — a third of one year's book — recurs. The 2027 report will answer the first; the Rafale line's next export decision the second.
