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The President of the Republic goes this Tuesday at the Euronaval show which brings together at Le Bourget most of the world players in the naval defense sector. He should be well received. "For the first time in thirty years, the military naval sector is growing in France", rejoices Hervé Guillou, president of Gican (the grouping of naval industries), also CEO of Naval Group (ex-DCNS).
The only downside, but size: the profession is struggling to recruit and calls for vocational training adapted to naval trades, relying on a need of 10,000 young people per year. "Our industry must improve its attractiveness to young people, raise awareness of our 400 trades and, often, change their image", explains the leader.
One hundred tenders
China's or Russia's maritime expansionism, fears over the freedom of commercial shipping, various international tensions, not to mention the three traditional scourges (overfishing, piracy and illegal trafficking) are pushing all states to modernize and arm their fleet. . The Gican estimates the $ 180 billion global order book for ships, including 35 billion in Europe and 11.5 billion in France. Hervé Guillou evokes for Naval Group a hundred possible export campaigns in the next ten years.
A submarine every three months in China
The rise of submarines is particularly spectacular. Not a big country that does not wish to strengthen this tool of power. China has built in three years the equivalent of the entire French military fleet, one frigate per month and one submarine every three months. Many tenders are in progress, particularly in Asia and India, but also in countries that have to renew an old fleet. The German TKMS and the French Naval Group are engaged in a fierce battle in Poland and the Netherlands. The first has recently won a tender in Norway and the second in Australia.
Consolidation to come
In France, the law of military programming allows the shipbuilding industry to consider the coming years with a certain serenity. The order for new mid-size frigates (FTI) is in the hoses and Naval Group is to deliver by 2025 four Barracuda submarines to replace the Ruby clbad. Defense Minister Florence Parly will confirm at the show the launch of studies for the future choice of a new aircraft carrier and will announce the FlotLog replacement program for the Navy's tankers.
This program, which involves four tanker tankers in total, would be the first milestone in the September 2017 merger between Naval Group and Italian Fincantieri. Despite the rise in military budgets, the European shipbuilding industry is in danger of collapsing if it does not restructure itself to a minimum in the face of competition, especially from China.
Conscious of this fragility, the CEOs of Naval Group and Fincantieri wish to explain to Euronaval their joint projects. With a dozen shipyards, Europe is only at the beginning of consolidation. CEO Privinvest group, which owns CMN in Cherbourg and German Naval Yard, Iskandar Safa believes that the rationalization of the European naval sector will pbad through the new program of German frigates, a maximum contract of 5 billion euros.
Anne Bauer
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