France
The EU Common Position forbids arms transfers that would “provoke or prolong armed conflicts or aggravate existing tensions or conflicts”. Nonetheless, France armed most of the conflicts that we studied.
Explore the graphics below to see how the likelihood of arms sales increases or decreases with different factors.
What factors might affect arms exports from France?
War
Arms sales from France are:
- More frequent when the recipient is involved in a minor armed conflict
Money
Arms sales from France are:
- More frequent as the military expenditure of the recipient increases 1
- More frequent as the total military acquisition of the recipient from all other suppliers increases
Relationships
Arms sales from France are:
- More frequent if the recipient is already a recent customer 3
Other
Arms sales from France are:
- Less frequent if the recipient was becoming more democratic
- More frequent if the recipient was a participant in the Somalia conflict
Conflicts
Direct conflict participation
France directly participated in the following conflicts:
Weapons supplies to conflict participants
France supplied Major Conventional Weapons to active participants in the following conflicts:
France was an Other Significant Supplier to active participants in the following conflicts:
Top arms recipients
The greatest recipients of Major Conventional Weapons from France by value* between 1990 and 2018 are as follows:
*The SIPRI Trend Indicator Value (TIV) is a relative measure of arms transfer value, normalized for inflation and currency.
Full results
All metrics were investigated using regression analysis. The full results are reproduced here.
Footnotes
- 1Measured in constant 2018 millions of USD
- 2Both total GDP and GDP per-capita were analysed, with similar results. In each analysis whichever had higher significance is specified although the differences were minor.
- 3Transfers above 5,000 TIV in the last five years. The SIPRI TIV unit is a measurement of the value of arms which is independent of currency and inflation.
- 4This metric is only applicable to supplier states that also participated in the invasion or the main international force up to 2011.