Working with France on its Defence White Paper

We’ve just had the publication of the French White Paper on defence and security, the  “Livre blanc”. It’s been a great privilege for me to be part of the commission that was put together to advise the Government on writing this White Paper.

Written version (continued)

I’ve spent the last six or nine months working every week with the heads of the armed forces, the intelligence services, the major Government departments, parliamentarians, think tankers on the issue of what are the right choices for France to make in defence and security.

Particularly interesting for me because I also played a big part in the British White Paper that we published in 2010. And I was very struck by how similar our analysis was of the trends in the world that we are facing, the risks that those pose for us as countries, and the need for Britain and France both to maintain effective armed forces, ready to intervene if necessary in the world.

Sitting in that commission, I was able to give the French our experience of having faced similar issues in London, in particular they were interested to hear how we had decided on our priorities for the resources that we had. And I talked about the choices that we had made to find money for major priorities like cybersecurity, conflict prevention or the fight against terrorism.

I was also able to explain how we came up with the force structure that we did for the British armed forces, that we wanted to maintain both a capacity to defend our essential interests and also to project our forces more widely in the world. And I see from the published French document that they have come to very similar choices.

We both face budget constraints, I think that it is going to further create a pressure for cooperation between us – there is a strong passage in the French White Paper which is welcoming UK-French cooperation as we agreed at Lancaster House in 2010. And the British Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers have put out a very warm statement welcoming the White Paper and the commitment to work together.

Altogether, it has been a fascinating exercise and a great privilege for me to be part of it.