PARIS: French military exports more than doubled in 2015, according to a report published by the country’s Ministry of Defence here the other day. Total defence industry exports from France reached EUR16.8 billion (USD19.1 billion) in 2015, a 108% rise on 2014’s figure of EUR8.1 billion.
The vast majority of French defence export sales in 2015, as in the previous two years, were made in the Middle East, where contracts worth EUR12.8 billion worth of military equipment were signed. In turn, almost the entirety of this figure is the result of purchases made by Qatar and Egypt, which agreed to acquire EUR6.8 billion and EUR5.4 billion of French materiel respectively.
