the European anti-missile shield project, supported by Germany and criticized by France

Germany, at the initiative of this project, has already joined around twenty other countries in Europe. This anti-missile shield will benefit from American and Israeli technologies, in particular, but will not have any French-made equipment.

How to defend Europe from a possible air attack? If a consensus exists among heads of state to recognize that Europe must strengthen its defense, everything becomes more complicated, particularly between France and Germany, when it comes to organizing this defense. Among the subjects of contention, the European initiative “Sky Shield”, which means “shield of the sky”, around which Germany has so far managed to rally 20 other European countries. It is a defense model modeled on the Israeli Iron Dome, the best anti-aircraft shield in the world, with three interception zones: short, medium and exo-atmospheric. In Ukraine, for example, for medium-range defense, two systems contributed not only to countering Russian missile attacks, but they also made it possible to neutralize two Awacs, rare and valuable aircraft for gathering intelligence from the enemy. These two systems are the American Patriot and the Franco-Italian manufactured Mamba.

To defend its skies, Europe is therefore spoiled for choice and therein lies the problem. France is furious for several reasons. In the initial Sky Shield project, Germany does not rely on any French-made equipment. On medium-range defense, the American Patriot is preferred to the Franco-Italian Mamba and on exo-atmospheric defense the European shield would rely on the experience of the Israeli system. While France would have preferred to be able to take advantage of the project to test Exoguard, a system developed by the French industrialist Astrium.

Germany takes the opportunity to boost sales of the Iris-T system

But Germany considered that it was necessary to act quickly and even preceded everyone by spending 3.5 billion euros in September 2023, to acquire the Israeli exo-atmospheric model. Germany set the example and its Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, did not need to force himself to convince other countries to sign a first memorandum of understanding a few days later. “Since the beginning of the Russian aggression against Ukraine we have observed how important it is to have a ground-to-air defense system on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the Hamas attacks against Israel also prove this, even organizations “Non-state actors can destabilize the best anti-aircraft defenses. In this context, the Sky Shield initiative is a clear sign of our commitment to countering these threats.”explains the German Defense Minister.

This eagerness on the German side is the second source of annoyance on the French side. If all of Germany is campaigning for the Sky Shield, it is above all for a story of big money: the exo-atmospheric market for the Israelis, medium range for the Americans and short range for the Germans. Germany is taking the opportunity to boost sales of the Iris-T system, which until now hardly interested anyone. The CEO of Rheinmetall, a heavyweight in German defense, is still encouraging today in the press and with great zeal, all European capitals to join the air shield project defended by Berlin.