PARIS (AP) — FrenchPresident Emmanuel Macronon Sunday announced 6.5 billion euros ($7.6 billion) in extra military spending in the next two years because of new and unprecedented threats, ranging from Russia to nuclear proliferation, terrorists and online attacks. The French leader laid out the spending plans in a sweeping speech calling for intensified efforts to protect Europe, andsupport Ukrainein its war against Russia's full-scale invasion. He said France will aim to spend 64 billion euros ($74.8 billion) in annual defense spending in 2027, the last year of his second term. That would be double the 32 billion euros in annual spending when he became president in 2017. ″Since 1945, freedom has never been so threatened, and never so seriously,'' Macron said in the French president's traditional speech to the military on the eve of the Bastille Day national holiday. ''We are experiencing a return to the fact of a nuclear threat, and a proliferation of major conflicts.'' ″To be free in this world, we must be feared. To be feared, we must be powerful,'' he said. He insisted that France can find the money to spend more on the military even as it tries to bring down massive national debts. Conservative and far-right parties have supported greater defense spending, while left-wing parties accuse the government of sacrificing hard-won social welfare benefits for military spending. Europe is in danger because ofRussia's war in Ukraineand wars in the Middle East, and because ″the United States has added a form of uncertainty,″ Macron argued. Other dangers he cited included online disinformation campaigns by unnamed foreign governments and propaganda operations targeting children, in ″the screen era.″ Macron also ordered France's top military and defense officials to start a ″strategic dialogue″ with European partners about the role that the French nuclear arsenal could play in protecting Europe. In an exceptional move, France and Britain agreed in recent days to cooperate on nuclear defense issues. Macron's speech came as U.S.President Donald Trumpis expected to make an announcement about Russia on Monday, and the head of NATO is traveling to Washington for two days of talks. Trump last week announced plans tosell NATO allies weaponrythat they can then pass on to Ukraine, which has been struggling to repel massive and complex Russian air assaults. Macron recentlyspoke with Russian President Vladimir Putinfor the first time in three years, but remains a target of widespread criticism in Russia for his vocal support for Ukraine. The Kremlin argues that the Ukraine conflict is a consequence of Western countries' decision to ignore Russia's security interests. The head of the French military, Gen. Thierry Burkhard, laid out risks emanating from Russia that stretch well beyond Ukraine. Russia is disrupting trajectories of satellites to jam them or spy on them, is involved in undersea infrastructure sabotage, and leads disinformation campaigns in France and Africa, Burkhard said Friday. He said Russian attack submarines penetrate into the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and Russian military planes interact frequently with other aircraft over the Black Sea, Syria, the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. French Defense MinisterSébastien Lecornu, in an interview published Sunday in La Tribune Dimanche, urged more French spending on defense technology and better training of engineers and technicians. ″Big powers and certain proliferating countries are working secretly on quantum computers ... that will be capable tomorrow of revolutionizing the battlefield. Do we want to stay in the game?"
