FRANCE: THE BUDGET, AIRCRAFT CARRIERS, AND DEBT

Brace yourself: as 2025 draws to a close, France is heading into 2026 without a passed budget, but with a new aircraft carrier under construction and an ocean of debt in the hold. The irony is at its peak in our beloved country, where it’s possible to operate without an approved budget while proudly launching the construction of a 310-meter warship.

Although France doesn’t have—for now—any approved budget, it’s still finding a way to buy itself a little toy worth 10.2 billion euros: a “next-generation” aircraft carrier scheduled for delivery in 2038. And all this while public debt hovers around 3.5 trillion euros, or 117% of GDP.

Welcome to France, land of budgetary paradoxes!

2026 Budget: Parliamentary Deadlock and a National Band-Aid

So France is starting 2026 with an empty wallet and its hands tied. With no agreement between deputies and senators in the joint committee, no 2026 budget could be adopted before December 31.

To prevent the government from going under on January 1 (the nightmare of a “shutdown” in the American style that our Constitution rightly seeks to avoid), the government came up with an emergency solution: a “special law” rushed through Congress to temporarily fund the government. Mind you, this isn’t a real budget (even Emmanuel Macron himself admits that this legislative stopgap “is not a budget” and “doesn’t solve the deficit problems,” thereby creating “problems with the country’s priorities”).

In plain language, the special law only allows for the collection of existing taxes and keeps the administration running in January, while keeping spending to a minimum. Meanwhile, major political decisions are put on hold.

This farcical situation has a whiff of déjà vu: last year, a special law had already bought time until a budget was passed in February. But it’s happening again in 2025, a sign of a stalled budgetary democracy. Parliament is effectively sidelined, and the executive branch is once again threatening to invoke the infamous Article 49.3 (a constitutional provision that allows the French government to pass a law without a parliamentary vote) to force the issue in early 2026. Because without a passed budget, the government will have to take responsibility and impose the finance bill by invoking Article 49.3, unless it allows the country to flounder for months.

The shadow of Article 49.3—that instrument so hated by the opposition—thus looms over the month of January as the only way to put the ship of France back on course (or rather, back on its wake).

A bitter irony: to properly fund our armed forces in 2026, we may have to torpedo the parliamentary debate. In a Republic so proud of its Parliament, here is the political deterrent back in vogue as a means of governing.

And while Bercy (the French Ministry of Economy) is preoccupied with provisional monthly accounts, another event is causing a stir: Emmanuel Macron officially launched the project for France’s new aircraft carrier. Taking advantage of a pre-Christmas visit to French troops stationed in the United Arab Emirates (one wonders what they’re doing there…), the president confirmed the construction of the long-planned successor to the Charles-de-Gaulle.

The PANG (short for “New Generation Aircraft Carrier”), its code name, will enter service in 2038 and will be 310 meters long with a displacement of 80,000 metric tons. With its 2,000 sailors and 30 onboard fighter jets, this nuclear-powered maritime behemoth aims to keep France in the very exclusive club of aircraft carrier powers. The cost of prestige: 10.2 billion euros—a “friendly” price…

In contrast, in May 2025, South Korea officially abandoned its CVX aircraft carrier project. Not only for budgetary reasons, but because South Korean strategists learned their lesson from the war in Ukraine. Precision-guided missiles, kamikaze drones, and defense saturation: large ships had become vulnerable.

Instead of investing $5 billion in a floating symbol, South Korea opted for a command ship that directs swarms of drones—less prestigious but more agile, and better suited to today’s threats.

Of course, they’ll tell us that the construction of the PANG had been planned for a long time, approved in the military programming law, and included (with an initial modest allocation) in the 2025 budget bill. So what? Seeing the government allocate millions upon millions for a military emblem while it’s unable to approve a single euro in civilian spending for the New Year is enough to leave one speechless.

In Washington, a budget impasse paralyzes federal agencies (shutdown); in Paris, we continue to proudly announce a high-tech warship that is the “guarantor of our might” while we can’t even balance the nation’s books. Where’s the catch?

Obviously, national defense is a strategic issue. But one must also have the means to match one’s ambitions…. And the reality is that France has been running up debt for decades and already spends more than 57 billion euros each year on its armed forces—an amount Macron wanted to increase to 64 billion by 2026.

With a budget in perpetual deficit, this increase is hanging in the balance… unless the government pushes it through Congress. The ultimate irony would be if this brand-new aircraft carrier—a symbol of sovereignty—were to be delivered in fifteen years to a country that is financially drained and dependent on foreign credit.

A giant among aircraft carriers for a budgetary dwarf?