‘Mastery of space technology is certainly the next challenge that Europeans will have to take up together. Space will be a major twenty-first century issue. France and Europe cannot stand aside from this challenge. Our country, which is pursuing an ambitious policy of modernisation of its space applications, must continue to draw its European partners along this road.'⁽¹⁾

The Issues

The world has become profoundly multilateral. It is characterised by a geographical spread of threats (terrorism, smuggling of raw materials and sensitive technology, weapons of mass destruction and organised crime). In this new world, space offers the possibility of rapid reaction, globally and independently. It offers the ability to see, to hear, to communicate and to localise on a worldwide scale. With virtually permanent availability, it offers a mastery of information technology out of all proportion to the land- or air-based technologies used hitherto. It is logical, therefore, that the armed forces and the intelligence services should depend increasingly on space technology even if, for reasons of redundancy and complementarity, other sources of information are and will continue to be used.

Space resources match perfectly the restraints and requirements of the armed forces. Today these are essentially the protection of the nation’s fundamental interests, contributing to security in the European and Mediterranean areas, to the preservation of peace and to respect for international law. The armed forces need, therefore: