Land Army, French Navy, National Police Force, and now the Space Army? The French Air Army officially became the French Air and Space Force on September 11, 2020. This new and surprising addition has been decided on by Emmanuel Macron and aims at protecting the country’s interest against “unfriendly space players”, according to the French President in his July 13, 2019’s address.
On March 8, 2021, this new army corps conducted its first training. The Ministry of the Armed Forces has announced the launch of Aster X, the first French military exercises in space.
These exercises are conducted virtually from March 8 to 12 and gather all civil and military services taking part in the protection of space in the name of France.
During the training, people involved had to settle a crisis (simulated, obviously) between a country enjoying space skills and another with and agreement for France’s military support. In this scenario, the conflict has been sorted out in a place cluttered with dozens of thousands of simulated objects where 18 crisis “events” are to happen: from “risky” penetration of waste into the atmosphere likely to jeopardize to the population and necessity prevention, to threatening to a French satellite from an adverse power to collect data, scramble it or destroy it.
These training scenarios can only be based on real events, as Le Monde recalls. In 2017, a Russian satellite tried to approach a French-Italian military satellite to spy.
Toulouse is now the headquarters of the Space Command (CDE, created in 2019). This is where the sixty participants are gathered. By 2025, services, units and programs related to space defense are to be gathered in one place, in Toulouse.
The Operational Center for Military Surveillance of Space Objects, the Satellite Observation Military Center, as well as industrials such as Safran, CS Group and ArianeGroup and – for these exercises – the French National Aerospace Research Center and the National Center for Space Studies will have to learn to cohabit.
This initiative is the first one in France and in Europe: foreign armed forces – partnering with France – joined the training.
The government guarantees these new armed forces will only be used for defensive actions. Interviewed by Le Monde, General Michel Friedling – entrusted with CDE – explained new space programs are to be used to show France’s power.
He mentioned the “Ares” (Space Action and Resilience) program launched in 2019. The latter supports the research to find better space response skills by 2030. “Today, our goal is to show our space strategy is not a document of intention, but we are moving upmarket and moving from words to actions to assure our freedom of action in space”, he said.
A five-billion-euro budget has been granted to the Space Defense Service for the 2019-2025 period. Most of this envelop will be used to modernized observation satellite, telecommunications and electromagnetic hearings. The rest will be mostly divided between the Ares program and the development of the new Space Command in Toulouse.
