France wants Ukraine’s drones, but Europe should pay

In a text published in Le Monde, a group of French experts argues that France should become one of the main organisers of European-Ukrainian drone production. I assess that the argument itself is important, because the war in Ukraine has shown that drones, counter-drone systems, sensors, software, artificial intelligence and electronic warfare are now fundamental to modern military capabilities.

The French proposal is attractive from a general and theoretical perspective. On one side, Ukraine has operational experience tested every day on the front, a capacity for rapid adaptation and an industrial ecosystem able to modify and offer solutions within weeks. On the other, Europe has money, a broader industrial base, technological resources and the ability to scale production. Bringing these two elements together could create a significant advantage over Russia, especially if €20–30 billion over five years were genuinely allocated to drones and counter-drone systems.

The problem is that France is not proposing this only out of concern for Ukraine or Europe. Paris wants to lead because it sees its own interest. It wants to use Ukrainian combat experience, pull the Ukrainian technological ecosystem into European programmes and, at the same time, position France as the political, industrial and financial centre of the entire project. This is a classic French approach: the initiative should be European, the funding should come from the EU, but the direction and prestige should preferably remain under Macron’s leadership.

This is even more interesting because France itself has not built a drone sector matching its ambitions. For years, Paris has spoken about autonomy, sovereignty and European defence, but in drones it has not created a position that corresponds to its political declarations. Today France is significantly behind Ukraine, has problems with mass production and sees that Poland and Germany are also developing their capabilities. That is why Paris wants to enter the game now, before Ukrainian experience becomes permanently linked to other partners, such as the United States, Germany or the countries of the Arabian Peninsula, which can offer enormous funding.

For Ukraine, this will be a very important test. Kyiv needs money, production and access to European markets, but it should not lose control over its own experience. Ukraine’s advantage lies in the fact that its solutions are created in the conditions of a real war — here and now — not in offices, PowerPoint presentations and procurement procedures lasting years. If Ukraine agrees to cooperate with France, it will have to ensure that it does not become merely a supplier of battlefield experience later repackaged as a French-European success.

France wants to attract Ukrainian industry, Ukrainian know-how and Ukrainian combat credibility, but it does not want to carry the main financial burden itself. It wants to use European money, build a political project around itself and present it as Europe’s answer to Russia’s drone war. This could be useful for Ukraine and Europe only if the project does not become a French mechanism for taking over the initiative, but a multinational production effort in which Ukraine, Poland, Germany and the eastern flank are not an addition to a French plan, but equal partners. As the old saying goes: „my idea, your execution”. Only in this case, Paris wants four bars of gold, Ukraine gets one, and what exactly is left for Eastern Europe?