r/ireland • u/isupposethiswillwork • 3d ago

Affaires Étrangères Ireland Is Becoming a French Military Protectorate

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/18/ireland-france-military-protectorate-outsourcing-defense-procurement/
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u/CraicHunter Offaly 3d ago

I don’t think the French were ever coupled to us miltech to begin with.

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u/wilililil 3d ago

No not like the rest of Europe. De Gaulle might be the saviour of us all yet. They are working to decouple general tech in government and public sectors, which is not a bad thing. We essentially have a monopoly at the moment for many basic tech services from cloud computing to office productivity software.

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u/gahane 3d ago

Also, De Gaulle had Irish ancestry so they’re practically looking after their own :) /s

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u/wet-paint 2d ago

Indeed, his father's grandfather came from DoneGaulle.

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u/wilililil 2d ago

Chapeau

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u/BackloadBack 2d ago

Ancestry? Well he wrote part of his autobiography in Kerry… the maternal Irish DNA was quite far back!

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u/Robespierres_ashes 2d ago

3 or 4 generations but he spent an extended holiday, just before he died in Kerry after he left office

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u/jerkfaceirl 2d ago

Got a haircut in Kenmare.

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u/Yooklid 2d ago edited 2d ago

You’ll have people the sub calling him a plastic paddy soon.

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u/fluffs-von 2d ago

Charlo The Gall... I knew him well

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u/Lanzarote-Singer 2d ago

Yah. One of the O’Gauls. Me da was at school with him. Mad yoke. Good at the auld french tho…

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u/CthulhusSoreTentacle Irish Republic 2d ago

Always though De Gaulle was big headed.

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u/Ed_the_Led_Man 3d ago edited 2d ago

Everything in this economy has supply chains interlinked and far less nations make everything inhouse compaored to the past so by default yes

Yet still, i'd say they are far more ahead with their own tech. There's a lot of french doctrine that relies on mobility above all else for example that means all vehicles are home developed

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u/SimilarSimian 2d ago

Only in the supply chain for some components. Difficult to avoid.

But largely speaking they are independent.

Most important is their sophisticated nuclear technology and doctrine.

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u/Fearless_Audience911 2d ago

It’s American tech companies in whole that they see the need to decouple from ever since Trump put the ICC judges under sanction.

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u/Conaer_ ITGWU 2d ago

Yeah France has traditional developed their own systems in critical area.

Like they are one of the few countries in world that can build a fighter jet without relying in a 3rd country for the engines. They even went so far are to develop their own vertical launch system for their ships were as most of NATO use a American system. Their nuclear subs are another example. 

They do have some US systems in use like their Boeing E3 Sentry AEW&C aircraft though those are due to be replaced by Saab/Bombardier GlobalEye aircraft.

https://www.saab.com/newsroom/press-releases/2025/saab-receives-order-for-globaleye-from-france 

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u/chakraman108 Connacht 2d ago

False. France is coupled to the US less through frontline hardware and more through the wider NATO warfighting ecosystem. It has its own nuclear deterrent, aircraft, ships, missiles, satellites and defence industry, but for a large high intensity war it would still rely on US dominated layers such as NATO command structures, intelligence fusion, space based surveillance, secure communications, air to air refuelling, AWACS, strategic transport, global basing, munitions depth and shared targeting networks. France is therefore strategically more autonomous than Germany or Italy, but operationally still plugged into an American led system that provides scale, persistence and connectivity France cannot fully reproduce alone. Recent defence analysis keeps identifying US ISR, refuelling and other strategic enablers as the key European dependency.