“We are continuing our discussions regarding the combat aviation component, particularly regarding the Rafale,” Vautrin told French lawmakers in response to questions about aid to Ukraine during a 2027 defense-budget hearing here. “From November, we will begin the first training of Ukrainian pilots on Rafale.”

Ukrainian pilots will soon begin training on Rafale aircraft in France, a major step forward for Ukraine’s combat aviation, the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post on Monday, citing a conversation with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.

Ukraine in July agreed on a roadmap with France that included a plan to buy 16 Rafale fighter jets together with the accompanying weapon systems. The country has previously received F-16 jets from several European countries, Mirage 2000 fighters from France, and in May agreed to buy 20 new Gripen jets, with Sweden donating 16 units of an older model.

The first Rafale jets are expected to fly in Ukrainian skies in 2028 or 2029, Macron said in July.

Both countries are continuing to work on localizing production of French missiles and aerial bombs in Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on Monday. Vautrin said in her hearing that a licensing process is currently underway for missiles.

“We are fully aware that by supporting Ukraine, we are defending Europe,” Vautrin said.

As part of the July agreement, Ukraine would also acquire an initial batch of SAMP/T NG air-defense batteries with missiles, Macron said at the time. The countries further approved licensing agreements for production in Ukraine of the AASM glide-bomb kit, the Aster 30 air-defense interceptor that arms the SAMP/T, as well as the SCALP/Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile.

Ukraine has already operated an older version of the French-Italian SAMP/T air-defense system, which relies on the Aster family of interceptors manufactured by MBDA. The country also uses the AASM Hammer precision glide-bomb developed by Safran.

Ukraine in November last year signed a letter of intent to buy up to 100 of Rafale jets manufactured by Dassault Aviation, after a similar letter of intent a month earlier between Ukraine and Sweden for the export of up to 150 Gripen jets, produced by Saab.

The Rafale integrates MBDA’s Meteor, considered by analysts to be one of the best long-range air-to-air missiles in service with Western militaries. The aircraft also features a high-end electronic warfare suite and a radar from Thales, both of which were upgraded as part of the Rafale’s F4.1 standard, qualified in March 2023.

The nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarine Le Vigilant fired an M51.3 missile in an acceptance test following the boat’s overhaul, the Ministry of the Armed Forces said in a statement. The missile, which didn’t carry a nuclear warhead, was launched off Finistère in western France and splashed down in the North Atlantic several hundred kilometers from any coastline, the ministry said.

France’s work to upgrade the M51 missile, manufactured by ArianeGroup, is part of a broader modernization of the country’s nuclear deterrence apparatus that also includes the construction of new ballistic-missile submarines and a future upgrade of the Rafale fighter jet that would carry a hypersonic nuclear cruise missile.

“This is a very important moment for our strategic credibility,” Macron told troops onboard a French Navy vessel from which he observed the launch. “Everything that has happened recently and what is happening today will be closely scrutinized by both our allies and our competitors alike, and it already is. Along the course we have set, this is a step forward.”

The modernization of France’s nuclear arsenal comes as the country works with several European allies on what Macron has called “forward deterrence,” a proposal that could involve extending the reach of French nuclear deterrence to those allies, although the details of what that would look like remain vague for now.

Every major overhaul of a French nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine is followed by an acceptance test firing of the M51, the ministry told Defense News in an emailed response to questions.

ArianeGroup and France’s Directorate General for Armament completed a first flight test of the modernized M51 from a launch site in Biscarrosse in southwest France in 2023, and the new missile entered operational service in October last year.

The latest M51.3 variant is estimated to have a range of more than 9,500 kilometers, from more than 9,000 kilometers for the previous version, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The missile carries four to six multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, according to the Bulletin.

While the official range of the missile is undisclosed, ArianeGroup says the M51 reaches an altitude of more than 2,000 kilometers before reentering the atmosphere at a speed of Mach 20.

The missile is equipped with the new TNO-2 oceanic nuclear warhead, and offers better performance in terms of range, accuracy and penetration capability, according to the ministry. The solid-propellant three-stage missile weighs more than 50 metric tons, and each of France’s four ballistic missile submarines can carry 16 of them.

“The M51.3 ensures the long-term credibility of the ocean-based component in the face of evolving adversary missile defenses,” the ministry said. “It reflects the commitment of the President of the Republic to maintaining operational credibility of the nuclear forces over the long term, at the level required by the international environment.”

The first version of the M51 was fired from the Biscarrosse launch site in 2006, with the first submarine launch from the SSBN Le Terrible in January 2010. Today’s launch was the seventh time a variant of the M51 was fired from a French submarine, and the 13th launch of the missile overall, all of them “of course, conducted without a nuclear warhead,” according to the ministry.

Defense startup funding in Europe already reached $7.4 billion as of Sept. 20, led by so-called “mega rounds” raised by Germany’s Helsing and Quantum systems, Dealroom and Resilience Media said in their annual State of Defence Tech report published Monday. That compares to $1.5 billion of funding for European startups in the defense space as of September a year earlier, based on the 2025 report.

Europe is grabbing a growing share of the defense-tech investment pie, with the European Union accounting for 21% of defense startup funding raised by September, from 15% last year. The share of the United States fell to 75%, the lowest ever, according to the Dealroom data.

“This is Europe catching up rather than the U.S. slowing,” Dealroom said. “EU 27 funding more than doubled in a year.”

Mega rounds made up more than 85% of the venture capital invested in European defense startups this year, including Helsing’s $1.8 billion Series E round in July according to Dealroom. German startups have set every fundraising record in European defense-tech venture capital funding since 2023, the report said.

Across NATO countries, defense startups raised $27.1 billion in venture capital so far in 2026, already more than $14.5 billion raised in all of 2025, and the amount is forecast to total $38.5 billion by the end of December.

Europe is channeling the largest share of venture capital into drones and autonomous systems, which accounted for 74% of the funding in the EU and 77% in the United Kingdom, compared to 57% in the United States. European startups in that segment that raised money included Helsing, Quantum Systems and Stark in Germany, Harmattan AI in France and Cambridge Aerospace in the U.K.

In Europe, the segment of unmanned aerial vehicles accounted for $4.7 billion raised as of September, according to the Dealroom data, followed by Earth observation and satellite imagery with $1.8 billion, anti-drone solutions and launch vehicles, each with $1.2 billion, and maritime robotics, with $796 million raised.

European startups in ground robotics, or unmanned ground vehicles, are trailing for now, with $77.6 million of venture capital funding so far this year, according to the Dealroom data.

Germany is the top European country for defense venture capital funding this year, with $3.5 billion raised, ahead of Finland with $1.2 billion, the U.K. with $932 million and France with $376 million. Munich is the European defense tech capital, attracting $3 billion in VC funding as of Sept. 20, ahead of Helsinki, London, Berlin, the English city of Cambridge, and Paris.

“Munich is the powerhouse of the European defense tech ecosystem,” Dealroom said. “Helsing and Quantum Systems drive most of it, together worth $25.7 billion. Behind them a younger cohort is forming across ground robotics, counter-drone and hypersonics.”

Funding for defense startups is diversifying as the sector grows, and total private investment in NATO defense startups, which also includes private equity, debt and grants, is forecast to reach $42.7 billion from $16.9 billion a year earlier, according to Dealroom.

Defense is the fastest-growing sector in Europe in terms of startup funding, ahead of space and robotics, according to Dealroom. Defense accounted for 15% of overall venture capital funding in the EU, from 6.2% reported a year earlier, while across NATO, defense attracted 4.9% of venture-capital funding as of September.

The project seeks to develop open, modular architecture for combat aircraft and sovereign AI technology that gives the government greater control over the tech, rather than having to rely on companies for critical systems, said Col. Cédric, head of the Air Force capability-development office, in a press briefing here on Thursday.

As AI becomes more powerful, the likes of Airbus and BAE Systems in Europe and General Atomics and Anduril in the United States are leveraging the technology to develop collaborative combat aircraft, also referred to as “loyal wingmen.” While many of those projects are company-driven, the French project would keep some of the critical technology under state control.

“What Hypairion is really about is equipping the Air Force and our platforms with architectures that are open, modular and owned by the government,” Col. Cédric said. He was identified only by his first name, in line with the Armed Forces Ministry’s policy for military staff. “Our goal is to move away from proprietary systems that lock down sensors and weaponry.”

The Ministerial Agency for Defence AI will be in charge of providing sovereign AI technology for the project in several areas, particularly command and control as well as mission autonomy, said Col. Thibault, deputy director for AI applications at the agency, known as Amiad. He described mission autonomy as AI that assists pilots with mission planning, in-flight decisions and post-mission analysis.

Amiad already uses AI to coordinate different platforms in the French Army’s Pendragon robotics project, and proposes to create an industrial hub for Hypairion where both traditional aerospace firms and smaller startups can interact with the project, an approach tested in Pendragon.

“The point of the Hypairion project is for the French state to retain control of the overall architecture and to be able to integrate the most capable startups or industrial companies,” Col. Thibault said. He said companies might join and leave the project, while Hypairion retains its capabilities in-house.

The Air Force is modifying two Mirage 2000s fighters at Mont-de-Marsan airbase to become AI test beds, adding a new computer that will allow to test “all kinds of use cases” starting by the end of the year, according to Col. Cédric. Mont-de-Marsan in southwest France is home to the Escadron de chasse et d’expérimentation, a dedicated fighter squadron for testing and evaluation.

Development will be incremental, and the first stage of Hypairion won’t necessarily be about having an operational capability, but will look at areas such as energy consumption and system interfacing, Col. Cédric said. First use cases being considered include using AI to optimize flight paths or tactical decisions such as when to deploy air-to-air or air-to-ground weapons.

The unmanned aircraft set to fly in 2028 will be a test platform and may not be the future wing-man drone planned for France’s Rafale jet as part of the fighter’s future F5 standard, though the experimentation will help pick a suitable platform later in the decade, Col. Cédric said.

The DGA has set a target data of 2033 for the first version of the Rafale F5, but will work on collaborative platforms within the framework of the current F4 standard before then, said General Engineer of Armaments Sébastien, in charge of the Rafale program at the directorate.

The goal of integrating AI on the Rafale is to help crews manage the “absolutely phenomenal cognitive load” to maintain future operational superiority, he said. The armaments engineer cited the Talios laser-designation pod from Thales, set to be delivered to the armed forces in 2027, as a concrete application of AI, able to scan an area and provide a fighter crew a list of potential targets.

Col. Cédric described a hypothetical future in which a fighter crew would carry out a mission in the morning, in between missions identify an adaptation against an enemy countermeasure, and take off again in the afternoon with updated software. That will require system architectures to evolve, he said.

The French Air Force officer likened future manned and unmanned platforms to “flying computers” on which the keyboard, screen or software could be changed without compromising security. The goal of the architecture being developed within Hypairion is to separate the flight-safety aspect from the ability to carry out missions, he said.

The Air Force doesn’t envisage a future with only unmanned aircraft, for both ethical and operational reasons, according to the colonel, who said the decision to deploy weapons remains a human one, and AI can make mistakes. “Humans can be augmented or supplemented by AI, but the assessment of the operational situation, tactical judgment, and so on, these are still entirely the domain of humans.”

As the Air Force prepares the Rafale F5 standard, “a true mid-life overhaul of the aircraft,” focus areas include adequacy of hardware resources, as the system needs to be able to handle complex calculations, Sébastien at the DGA said. Another focus is system openness, meaning “the armed forces must be able to tailor artificial intelligence according to their own needs and so dispose of an open system.”

The Rafale’s F4 standard already includes an initial level of openness through a tablet connected to the mission system, and the F5 standard will seek to broaden the scope of data available to the tablet, give it access to the mission system’s computing resources, and improve the ability to interface with onboard communication systems and data links, according to the DGA engineer.

“This in particular will make it possible, and without waiting for the deployment of the F5 standard, to control autonomous combat platforms from the Rafale,” Sébastien said.

While France relies on Dassault Aviation and other major industrial partners for the Rafale to develop AI in the fighter’s major systems, the armed forces want to ensure operational autonomy, meaning having “the ability to tailor the AI to the specific operational needs of the theater,” the engineer said.

Hypairion will work on a road map covering usage concepts, doctrine, scaling up the work force as well as the actual equipment, resulting in a first full-scale trial of collaborative combat drones flying alongside fighter jets in 2028, according to Col. Cédric.

“The challenge for the Air and Space Force is ultimately to determine what a fighter squadron will look like in 2035 or 2040, once all these systems are potentially integrated into the squadron,” Col. Cédric said. “Today, it’s actually quite rare to come across computer scientists in a fighter squadron. Perhaps tomorrow, that will be a daily occurrence.”

Belgium must have replacements on time, according to the country’s Chief of Defence Gen. Frederik Vansina, Dutch news agency ANP reported on Wednesday. Vansina told ANP that Belgium does not want to dictate terms to the Netherlands, but cannot afford to be left without major naval vessels, with its frigates Leopold I and Louise-Marie at the end of their usable lives in 2030.

The frigate project led by Dutch shipbuilder Damen has been plagued by delays, many related to its design, which increased in size over time and had to be corrected due to structural stability issues. From an original expectation that the first vessel might enter service around 2025, the Dutch Ministry of Defense now expects the first new anti-submarine frigate to be delivered no earlier than 2033.

Belgium is looking whether, for example, Italian-built frigates could be delivered more quickly, and is in talks with the Netherlands about interim solutions, such as Damen delivering a small frigate as a temporary stop-gap measure, ANP reported, citing Vansina. The general said the fact that Belgium has approached other frigate builders “is not abnormal and certainly not unfriendly.”

“It’s paramount for Belgium to maintain that operational capability,” Vansina told ANP. “The only naval firepower we have are those frigates.”

The Belgian Navy’s two frigates are former Dutch Karel Doorman-class frigates that were laid down and launched in the 1980s, with Belgium buying them second-hand from the Netherlands in 2005.

Dutch State Secretary for Defense Derk Boswijk discussed the frigate project and the importance of the countries’ bilateral maritime cooperation with his Belgian colleague earlier this week, he told parliament in a letter on Wednesday, responding to questions about reports of Belgium considering Italy’s FREMM EVO over the future frigates being developed by Damen.

Boswijk and Belgian Defence Minister Theo Francken met in Brussels on Sept 28, and both posted on social media they had a “good and constructive discussion,” with Boswijk saying the two talked about the progress of various dossiers.

“Given the commercially confidential nature of this process, we agreed not to comment on media reports regarding our cooperation,” Boswijk told parliament.

An internal analysis by the Belgian Navy identified Fincantieri’s FREMM EVO frigate as the best alternative, with the Italian builder able to deliver the first vessel in 2030 and the cost remaining within Belgium’s budget of €3.2 billion ($3.6 billion) for three vessels, the news website of public broadcaster VRT reported last week, citing the internal document.

Naval Group’s FDI frigate is also considered a good option, but the 2030 delivery deadline is uncertain as the yard is already booked with orders from France, Greece and Sweden, according to VRT NWS.

The Dutch MoD said in its 2026 materiel project plan that delivery of the first new ASW frigate has been pushed back to 2033 from 2030 as the original ship design had to be fixed.

The project-goal letter in 2018 had envisaged a first frigate to be operational around 2025, with the Ministry of Defense saying at the time it would request offers from Damen and Thales Nederland without a competitive tender. In a Dutch-Belgian memorandum of understanding later that same year, the countries agreed that Belgium would receive its vessels in 2030 at the latest.

Following discussions with Damen as the intended shipbuilder and Thales for the radar and fire control system, the MoD told parliament in 2020 that a detailed design phase of about two years would be necessary before the start of construction, with the first frigate expected to be delivered in 2027 and operational the next year.

In the 2023 procurement proposal letter, the MoD expected physical construction to start in 2025, while expected delivery had been pushed back by a year. The procurement proposal also touted the possibility of cooperating with Germany around the F126 frigates to be built by Damen, a project that has since been scrapped following years of delays and cost overruns.

Under the original plan the Netherlands was to order two frigates for its Navy and two more on behalf of the Belgian Navy. The Dutch said in 2024 they would double their order to four, while Belgium announced in 2025 the country would increase its order to three.

In the 2023 letter to parliament, the ministry said the budget for two Dutch frigates had increased to €1.88 billion, a number that was revised upwards again to €1.96 billion in early 2024.

The size of the proposed frigate has crept up over time, from a plan in mid-2020 for a ship displacing 5,500 tons to a definitive design of around 6,400 tons, and compared to about 3,300 tons for the existing M-frigate class that the new vessels are set to replace.

The 68e RAA is reshuffling its batteries of 155 mm Caesar howitzers into three two-gun sections from two four-gun sections, while keeping the overall size of its fleet of truck-mounted howitzers unchanged for now, according to Col. Rémy Jaillet, who commands the artillery formation.

The regiment is relying on the Atlas fire-control system to coordinate multiple sections and retain the ability to mass fires despite dispersing the guns, Jaillet said on the sidelines of an innovation day organized by the 7th Armored Brigade at its headquarters in Besançon in eastern France earlier this month.

“As counter-intuitive as it may seem, splitting sections into pairs increases the availability of fires and therefore their responsiveness,” Jaillet told Defense News in a followup comment via email. “Smaller, more dispersed units also improve their survivability and resilience in a degraded environment with a strong counter-battery threat.”

The move comes as NATO militaries study lessons from Ukraine, where persistent drone observation has made firing positions vulnerable to counter-battery fire. Ukrainian forces have responded by dispersing guns, shortening firing missions, concealing positions and separating ammunition from firing units, according to an analysis by the Royal United Services Institute.

Jaillet said the reorganized artillery structure is spearheaded by the 68e RAA and shouldn’t currently be considered a standard format for the Army. In the reorganization, each battery has fewer guns, but there are more batteries, he said.

The 68e RAA is one of six French artillery regiments equipped with the Caesar, manufactured by KNDS. The French Army’s model for a combat-ready brigade includes an artillery regiment equipped with 16 Caesar self-propelled howitzers and eight MEPAC mortars.

The regiment’s new artillery-support section is in charge of identifying all firing positions, setting up decoys and prepositioning ammunition, in a move away from each gun section having its own small reconnaissance element, according to Jaillet.

The idea is to “recreate a dynamic artillery maneuver” by bringing together all functions related to survivability, maneuver and coherent deployment under a section commander, instead of having two firing sections that are autonomous in preparing their movement and protection, “with all the limitations that entails,” Jaillet said.

The colonel said the new structure “in a way” recreates the reconnaissance sections that existed previously in French artillery formations, but augmented with new capabilities, particularly in the field of deception.

‘Opacity bubbles’ and metallic cages

In the regiment’s deployment zone, Caesar guns will wait before fire missions in what Jaillet called “opacity bubbles,” concealed and emitting as little as possible to avoid detection. The support section will set up ammunition resupply plots, decoys and equip firing positions with protective metallic cages that the self-propelled howitzers can reverse into.

The 68e RAA tested the new organizational model at the Canjuers military camp in southern France earlier this year and again during the French large-scale exercise Orion 2026 that ran until the end of April. The experience allowed the regiment to fine-tune the structure and components such as the protective cages and the decoys, the colonel said.

The first Caesar battery will permanently transition to the new structure next year, with the remainder to follow, Jaillet said.

The French Army, during a drone observation-artillery shooting competition in Romania in August, fired its Caesar howitzers from dug-in positions, which Jaillet called a particular case that “we shouldn’t turn into a general rule.”

“The essence of the Caesar is to provide survivability through mobility,” Jaillet said.

While the static frontline and the transparency of the battlefield in Ukraine have translated into “very defensive” tactics, with prepared positions that require heavy engineering assets and lengthy groundwork, Jaillet said those are “not the be-all and end-all. We need to be able to adopt a more dynamic approach.”

The biggest change for artillery due to the widespread use of drones has been in target acquisition, with “the real shock, the real turning point” happening before the war in Ukraine, during the 2020 conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the regimental commander.

Azerbaijan deployed integrated target acquisition and strike systems during the conflict, with drones providing target information via rapid communications that enabled artillery strikes to be called in, the colonel said. Jaillet likened it to a modern iteration of aircraft observing targets and adjusting artillery fire, with drones creating a new synergy and accelerating the sensor-to-shooter loop.

The Atlas fire-control system used by the 68e RAA is interoperable with brigade-level systems such as SitaWare command-and-control, but Jaillet said more capabilities are needed to link sensors and effectors across the battlefield.

The structure of the regiment’s liaison, observation and coordination detachments is evolving, from fairly self-contained, “essentially a vehicle with a team inside,” to teams combining an armored vehicle capability with ground, radar and drone capabilities, Jaillet said.

The colonel said he’s satisfied with the regiment’s equipment, including the Caesar howitzer and the MEPAC mortar that’s entering service, as well as the Thales-produced Murin ground-surveillance radar and Delair’s DT46 reconnaissance drone.

“For ground-to-ground artillery and target acquisition, this is high-quality equipment that has proven itself in operations,” Jaillet said. “There’s always room for technological improvement. The battlefield is expanding, so we need to increase range and improve responsiveness.”

The five projects approved on Monday are now eligible for EU funding via the €1.5 billion (US$1.7 billion) European Defence Industry Program, the Council of the EU, which acts as the bloc’s co-legislator, said in a statement. The other selected projects are in the areas of maritime and seabed defense, space, and protection of Europe’s eastern flank.

The European Commission has allocated €325 million for European defense projects of common interest, or EDPCIs in EU lingo, as part of EDIP. While the commission has been pushing to reduce fragmentation in Europe’s defense industry, cooperation between member states has been challenging due to competing industrial interests, illustrated by the recent breakdown of a French-German project to develop a sixth-generation fighter jet.

“These pan-European projects will make a difference for our EU member states’ armed forces, for Ukraine and for our security as a whole,” European Commissioner for Defence Andrius Kubilius said in a post on the social-media network X, formerly Twitter.

He called the approval of the five projects of common interest a “major breakthrough” that will close critical capability gaps in the EU, with an “envisaged funding ambition” of around €190 billion by 2036.

The EDPCIs are large-scale projects that give member states a framework to cooperate on major defense initiatives that would be too large or complex for individual countries to tackle on their own, according to the commission. The projects are designed to extend beyond the current EDIP funding period, which runs through 2027.

The EU’s executive arm will now work with member states to implement the projects and monitor their progress, and also expects to provide financial support, it said in a separate statement on Monday. On average, 18 EU countries participate in each project, with Ukraine part of four of the five projects, the commission said.

The project on drone and counter-drone defense, with the acronym Decoder, unites most EU member states as well as Norway and Ukraine, according to a commission fact sheet. The indicative overall investment is in the range of €3.5 billion to €5 billion by 2033.

The integrated maritime and seabed defense project, or IMSD, has an indicated investment envelope of €43 billion to €72 billion by 2045, while indicative overall spending under consideration for the space project amounts to €24 billion by 2034.

Investment in the EU Federated Air and Missile Defence project, or EU-FIAMD, which includes an early warning element, could be anywhere between €55 billion and €80 billion by 2040, according to the commission fact sheet.

The Eastern Flank Watch project, which aims to strengthen security on the EU’s eastern border through “a comprehensive multi-domain effort,” with participation from 12 EU members as well as Norway and Ukraine, is indicated to result in between €60 billion and €100 billion of investments by 2036.

Thales announced the availability of HexaForce last week, after testing it during NATO’s Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise, or CWIX, in Poland in June. The company is positioning the system as a multi-domain C2 “overlay” that can plug into legacy and national systems from the strategic to the tactical level, while allowing users to choose their own AI models and avoid vendor lock-in.

NATO is increasingly turning to AI to harness growing amounts of data in command and control, and already operates a C2 system supplied by United States-based Palantir Technologies. Meanwhile, the European Union is looking to accelerate development and deployment of European capabilities amid concern about sovereign control of the technology underpinning them.

“I don’t want to go too much into detail. but we are quite advanced in some discussions with some NATO countries so far,” Moreau told Defense News in a Sept. 24 interview.

As European and NATO militaries look to scale operations from brigade-level formations to army corps of more than 100,000 troops, AI will be key to processing more complex data, shortening planning cycles and improving situational awareness, Moreau said.

HexaForce is aimed at providing command and control from the army corps level down to the battalion, according to the executive. Thales defined a goal with end users to be able to plan 1,000 target missions a day, a tenfold increase.

The system has an open architecture built around NATO standards, allowing countries to plug in existing systems for tasks such as mission planning, or use the large language model of their choice, according to Moreau. In addition to the LLM component, HexaForce includes agentic AI for tasks such as targeting mission preparation.

It has a fully distributed architecture designed to rely on mesh capability, allowing the system to be spread over different data hubs within different command posts, in line with new operational concepts to not rely on central computing, according to Moreau.

By interfacing with legacy solutions, HexaForce can add “AI-powered capability” to systems already in use by the armed forces, according to Moreau. HexaForce is a command-and-control system, and users still need dedicated tactical systems to provide sensor data, he said.

The executive said the aim at CWIX was for end users to test HexaForce and its interoperability with existing and legacy systems. The system implements NATO standards related to the Data-Centric Security and Federation Mission Networking frameworks, he said.

For threats identified at the strategic command level, HexaForce can propose different courses of action, including firing options using air or land forces, according to Moreau. The operator can then choose a course of action, with the system sending the targeting mission to the tactical level.

“Of course it remains up to the operator to choose to push the button, and to choose the best option proposed by HexaForce,” Moreau said. “There is no automated action.”

In addition to connecting to systems that provide tactical awareness, Hexaforce could include commercial ship-tracking data or cyber threats to provide a more complete picture, Moreau said.

While developed with input from the French Army, the executive repeatedly stressed that the Thales system is designed as a NATO solution rather than a France-specific system. Asked how it compares with existing systems such as Systematic’s SitaWare or Airbus’s Multi-Domain Combat Cloud, Moreau instead focused on the interoperability of the Thales system.

Moreau said HexaForce is ready and already in the hands of the armed forces, with the first version taking nine months from design to making it available to the French Army.

France is developing its sovereign C2 system Arcadia, and Moreau said that while Hexaforce could be “a cornerstone” of the French system, the decision is not up to Thales.

The push comes after restrictions by the United States on satellite access in Ukraine and the Middle East over the past two years underscored the risk of dependence, executives and policy makers said at an industry conference here last week.

“Sovereignty” was a recurring theme at the World Space Business Week, held from Sept. 14 to 17 in Paris, and the two-day Space Defense & Security Summit side event.

U.S. firms touted their ability to build satellites in Europe or operate free from International Traffic in Arms Regulations, while European companies highlighted their ability to provide local clients with complete satellite systems.

“The drive to sovereignty, we all have customers that want to go there,” said Noam Segal, the chief executive officer of Israeli firm ImageSat International, or ISI. “Any of the defense customers we are dealing with can find themselves in a geopolitical situation in which one of the suppliers will not be able to deliver. I think this is the driver.”

The war in Ukraine has highlighted both the importance of satellite data on the modern battlefield and the reliance of Western militaries on U.S. suppliers for critical space capabilities. Restrictions on Starlink access in Ukraine, a halt in U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine in March 2025 and imagery restrictions over the Middle East in 2026 are pushing European countries to seek sovereign alternatives.

The lesson from Ukraine has been to show how critical space has become for defense, as well as “the importance of indeed not being reliant on solutions you don’t control,” said Guillaume de la Brosse, head of the defense policy and innovation unit at the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm.

He said there is a “clear imperative” to accelerate development of sovereign space-based capabilities in Europe, meaning a minimum backbone of public assets owned by either the EU or member states, and an EU-based industry able to provide sovereign services “that we can control all the time.”

“Sovereignty very much matters, this is what we’ve learned from Ukraine,” De la Brosse said. “That does not preclude the fact that we need cooperation, whatever happens, but that as a pre-requirement has sovereignty. It’s good to cut dependencies where we need to cut dependencies, and that’s very much the agenda of the upcoming years.”

Recent history showed space sovereignty is the only ultimate guarantee of having the freedom to “assess and act when conflict breaks out,” said Jean-Baptiste Paing, a deputy director at France’s Directorate General for Armament whose responsibilities include intelligence and space operations. He cited the difficulty obtaining commercial satellite communications over Afghanistan and, more recently, access to commercial imaging during the various crises in the Middle East.

The emergence of New Space, the shift from a government-dominated to a private space industry that has cut the cost of launchers and satellites, is allowing European governments to establish space sovereignty even with relatively limited budgets, executives said.

The number of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites for defense purposes, “a key priority for most nations,” is expected to increase more than fourfold through to 2035, according to industry consultancy Novaspace, which organized the conferences.

New Space provides “an incredible opportunity” for countries that didn’t have a space industry to develop their own sovereign capabilities, said Vincent Dedieu, the CEO of Sodern, a unit of France’s ArianeGroup. He said Sodern has been working with countries such as Poland, Bulgaria and Finland, which are taking advantage of New Space to catch up in both defense and commercial space.

The fact that customers are now able to own space assets at a “completely different cost point” from the past means the push for sovereign capabilities “is a strong trend that’s going to be there for the future,” according to Segal at ISI.

There is a “seismic shift” in how industry and governments deal with space capabilities, said Julia Gottfriedsen, chief technology officer at German thermal-imaging startup Constellr. She cited the example of Germany buying data from ICEYE and Rheinmetall for its brigade in Lithuania, through a service-level agreement that shifted the risk for data supply to the companies.

“So this is pretty modern and new, while in parallel, of course, the governments are also looking into procuring their own infrastructure,” Gottfriedsen said.

Executives at U.S.-based geospatial intelligence firms such as Planet Labs, BlackSky and Vantor all noted that their satellites can be delivered ITAR-free, with several highlighting their European presence or ability to manufacture their satellites outside the Untied States.

HawkEye 360 CEO John Serafini said partnerships with Italy’s Leonardo and Czechia’s ERA and having a Luxembourg subsidiary means he’s confident that “even as a U.S. company,” the firm can meet the requirement of European militaries “regardless of how those customers want the sovereignty delivered to them.”

Planet Labs cut the ribbon on a new facility in Berlin this week, and co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Robbie Schingler said the company’s first German-built Pelican satellite is set to come off the production line by the end of the year and sent into orbit on a German-built Isar Aerospace rocket launched from Norway “sometime early next year.”

Meanwhile, Finland’s ICEYE is taking sovereignty “to a whole different level” to fulfill a German order for a 40-satellite constellation, setting up a manufacturing site in western Germany controlled by a German-owned entity and keeping the entire supply chain within the country, according to CEO Rafal Modrzewski. That does require a sufficiently large order to justify the investment, he said.

For European customers that own and operate a smaller number of ICEYE satellites, such as Sweden, Finland, Poland and the Netherlands, the company is now offering a software layer that allows countries to “federate their assets at the tactical level” and borrow each other’s capabilities to cover areas of interest, Modrzewski said.

One element of sovereignty is assurance and control, another is choice, said Schingler at Planet Labs. The federation approach allows countries to network their systems for an ad hoc mission, “and that choice also gives a lot of sovereignty,” he said.

The European Commission is pushing for international cooperation to remain the way of doing things in space, including through discussions with NATO about space security, even if “that cooperation is very much challenged, and there is a need for Europeans to do much more, investing in their freedom of action,” De la Brosse said.

He said that as EU members invest heavily in space, one challenge is to avoid “renationalization of space policies,” and the commission is using the EU budget to provide an incentive to member states to coordinate investments and pool space resources rather than develop constellations without taking other member states into account.

Germany’s plan to invest a “massive” €35 billion in sovereign military space capabilities by 2030 may raise concern among some EU members that the country will “fly solo,” but the investment is a legitimate sovereign choice, said Paing at the DGA.

“I cannot speak for sovereignty myself without recognizing the same capacity in other countries, and I think it should be seen more as a model to follow for others rather than something to be afraid of,” Paing said. “That being said, I believe that this investment should nevertheless be put at the service of building a stronger Europe.”

Sovereignty also includes the ability to get satellites into orbit, executives said, with several remarking on the scarcity of launch slots. Nicolas Lefort, the head of new markets at MBDA, said France’s Toutatis project to bring a maneuverable satellite into low-Earth orbit is still waiting for a launcher.

François Lombard, the head of connected intelligence at Airbus Defence and Space, said he’s optimistic about new European players offering launchers capable of carrying one-ton payloads into LEO, citing a recent successful launch by Germany’s Isar Aerospace, as well as ArianeGroup’s MaiaSpace coming to the market “pretty soon.”

“In that case, European alternatives, which is good,” Lombard said. “There are a few satellites we cannot launch from other continents, so it’s important that we have also the sovereign access to space for this class of satellites in a competitive manner.”

Battlefield transparency and powerful, precise modern weapons have jointly created a “zone of death” along the frontline where approaching the enemy is “very, very dangerous,” Baratz said at an innovation day held by the French 7th Armored Brigade in eastern France last week. In terms of new technology, what the Army needs most is a way to break the resulting tactical stalemate, he said.

Maneuver along the Ukrainian frontline has largely stalled as near-continuous drone observation means neither Ukraine nor Russia can mass forces without exposing them to destruction. Baratz compared the situation to World War I, when artillery and machine guns meant maneuver and offensive operations could be futile or only possible at the cost of enormous casualties.

“We’re in a system of tactical stalemate, where defensive systems are more powerful than offensive ones,” Baratz said on the sidelines of an innovation day in Besançon on Sept. 9. “We need to be able to break out of this system. So today, we have to be able to recreate what we call a bit of opacity in this world of transparency.”

Baratz said there are “a great number of ways” to think about deception, including physical decoys and electromagnetic deception using simulated command posts. The innovation day featured inflatable copies of equipment used by the 7th Armored Brigade, including a Caesar howitzer and the VBL light armored vehicle.

The commander also noted the importance of electromagnetic jamming, and of electronic warfare and cyber warfare as forces become increasingly connected.

“How can we blind the adversary? How do we mislead him about our intentions? How can we create a temporary vulnerability with the adversary to restore momentum and offensive action,” Baratz said.

“Above all, how do we deceive his sensors or ensure that his sensors don’t see the right things, allowing the concentration of force? Because today, we can’t concentrate if we’re destroyed, and so there isn’t the mass necessary to be able to throw the adversary off balance.”

Other technologies that could reshape the battlefield include quantum technology, both for secure communications as well as for sensing, according to Baratz.

“There’s also multi-spectral image analysis that is starting to allow us to see what’s under trees, what’s under cover,” the general said. “There are new technologies, often driven by artificial intelligence, that provide capabilities we couldn’t have imagined until now.”

With the pace of technological change in some areas now measured in weeks rather than years or months, that creates difficulties for the military, according to Baratz. He cited telecommunications, where the military is “lagging far behind” the civilian sector in terms of bandwidth and data transmission capacity, even as the modern battlefield is organized around data.

The general said the military may be on the brink of a revolution in warfare similar to that of 1920, when mechanization and radio communications accelerated the pace of maneuver. The growing use of data on the battlefield may ultimately speed up both decision-making and destruction of the adversary, Baratz said.

Baratz said the modern battlefield has “radically changed” from the past, when military tactics were ultimately organized around geography, “that is to say the ridge line that defined the field of fire or field of view.”

“So how do we reinvent ourselves tactically?” Baratz said. “At the time, we French didn’t really reinvent ourselves, and we paid the price in 1940.”

Baratz said innovation has become an element of operational superiority for armies, and the ability to continuously adapt systems and incorporate new technology is fundamental.

The Future Combat Command has therefore adopted “a logic that is entirely different” from the Army’s traditional top-down approach, and is encouraging “testing, tinkering, experimenting” at the regimental level, Baratz said, with the aim of making the force more efficient, more flexible, more adaptable and more creative.

While large-scale programs will remain necessary, the Army also needs to be able to repurpose civilian technologies for military purposes and increasingly move toward open-architecture systems, Baratz said.

The Army currently provides each regiment with €150,000 ($172,000) a year to spend on their own projects or to buy off-the-shelf kit in a bid to stimulate grassroots innovation. The Army’s €20 million account for these “subsidiarity credits” is being increased with an additional €35 million in the 2027 defense budget, according to Baratz.

The commander said the Army has “real needs” in areas including robotics, autonomous vehicles, discreet mobility and battlefield-energy generation. New companies are entering the market in those areas and reaching out to the French forces, including increasingly European firms, which is helping stimulate thinking and the wider ecosystem, Baratz said.

He said all French brigades have initiatives around light mobility, working with companies on electric scooters, motorcycles and quads to be “faster and stealthier on this changing battlefield.”

Electric power allows forces to be more discreet but is also an area of vulnerability, due to the need for intelligence-gathering systems and frontline data hubs that are all power hungry, the general said. The Future Combat Command is therefore also looking at what Baratz called “frugal artificial intelligence,” designed to consume as little energy as possible.

“All of this is the combat of the future,” Baratz said. “It’s the future combat that remains hard to imagine, because technology is moving so quickly that I’m incapable of telling you what things will look like in one or two years.”