French arms sales have been skyrocketing for the past few years, and our country has become the world’s third largest weapons exporter. But the general public knows little about this industrial flagship, or about the State authorities in charge of selling these arms.
Most importantly, France is massively exporting to the Middle East, especially to Saudi Arabia. At State level, who arbitrates when it comes to selling to regimes suspected of war crimes? What is realpolitik constraining us to? If weapons are so crucial to the French job market and the country’s influence, why is the matter a blind spot of the French public debate? While in other European countries, civil society reacts, only a few associations do so in France. Why such a taboo?