Striking back against Austerity: French defence policy in times of crisis

Political science accounts of the debt crisis in Europe have highlighted the changes observable in national and European policymaking. These changes have vastly showed an emphasis on economic imperatives and more precisely on the crisis’ impact on public expenditure. Defence policy offers a particularly interesting perspective on the politics of state adaptation to spending cuts. While being at the core of state sovereignty, this policy has not been immune to attempts at decreasing public expenditure, which have materialized in decreasing strategic influence in some cases (Evans 2013). Still, the French defence policy has experienced a more nuanced evolution, with ambiguous budgetary compromises and renewed military interventionism abroad. This paper seeks to explain the crisis’ impact on defence policy: it shows that the budgetary imperative has been mediated by sector-specific institutions, ie. the French strategic autonomy and political will to remain a military actor at the European level as well as individual high-level civil servants. The French defence policy has proved highly resilient against spending cuts, contrary to other European partners.