Europe

Home page

Europe

French Navy's new aircraft carrier will be named France Libre

18 March 2026 20:40 (UTC +04:00)

The new French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which will replace the only ship of its type in the French Navy, the Charles de Gaulle, in 2038, will be named France Libre, announced French President Emmanuel Macron during a visit to the Naval Group shipyard in western France, APA reports.

"Our desire to remain free is a desire for independence at any cost, for complete and unlimited autonomy of action, and for the deployment of our forces wherever the defense of France's interests requires, anywhere in the world. That is why our new aircraft carrier will be named 'Free France,'" Macron said.

Speaking next to a model of the future ship, the head of state said it would be 310 meters long, equipped with two nuclear reactors generating "twice the power" of the current aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, and would have a displacement 1.8 times greater, at 80,000 tons. According to Macron, these figures "reflect the ambitions" of France, which seeks to maintain the ability to project power "thousands of kilometers from its shores."

"This new aircraft carrier will be fit for its age. While Charles de Gaulle still belongs to the analog generation, its successor will <...> possess a secure, flexible, and high-performance digital architecture that will allow for the most effective use of the various generations of combat systems that will be replaced throughout its service life," the president stated.

He emphasized that the Free French aircraft carrier will be built from the ground up with an eye toward future modernization and will take into account developments in combat aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles, with which it will also be equipped. Macron announced that the ship will be equipped with a laser defense system, a cyber-protected digital architecture with artificial intelligence, which will be used to assist in tactical decision-making.

Expensive project

The head of state specified that the project's cost is estimated at approximately €10 billion. He promised that 90% of these funds will be allocated to contractors registered in France, with 800 different firms working on the new ship. Technicatome and Framatome will be tasked with constructing the reactor systems. Thalès, Dassault, and MBDA, among others, will also be tasked with developing the weapons systems, aviation components, and digital systems.

In this context, Macron announced that during today's Council of Ministers meeting, a supplementary military planning bill was approved, drafted to increase the defense budget more quickly than previously planned. It will be officially presented in early April and then submitted to parliament for consideration. It is expected to be adopted by July 13 of this year. It calls for increasing military funding to €64 billion by 2027, rather than 2030, as envisaged in the previously adopted military planning law.