La French Public Finance Society (SFFP) organised its 2nd summer university on 1 to 3 July at the IPAG in Montpellier, devoted to the uniqueness of defence and security finance. Geneviève Darrieussecq, Secretary of State to the Minister for the Armed Forces, opened the conference. Several round tables followed: the confidence in defence finances, the balance and equipment issues forces and finally internal security issues.
Julien Malizard, a researcher at the Economics of Defence Chair and deputy chairholder, analysed the R&D budgets financed by the Ministry of the Armed Forces between 1993 and 2017.
- In particular, it showed the cycle differences between the 1990s (peace dividend) marked by austerity and the 2000s and 2010s with numerous episodes of economic crisis.
- However, it appears that public R&D is better protected than other ministry expenditure of the Armed Forces (particularly equipment).
- By extrapolating the value of the research tax credit for DTIB companies, the public authorities are devoting, in 2017, more than 6 billion euros for defence R&D. This represents more than 25% in public R&D, 20% of DTIB sales and nearly 10% of total R&D in France.
