Ministry of Defence (France)

Ministère de la Défense et des Anciens Combattants
Headquarters Hôtel de Brienne
Location
  • 14 rue St Dominique, Paris
Ministre de la défense
 Jean-Yves Le Drian
Budget
 €40.7 Billion
Staff
 63,696 civilian staff[1]
Website www.defense.gouv.fr

The Ministry of Defence (French: Ministère de la Défense) is the French department in charge of managing the French Armed Forces inside and outside French soil. It is an active member of NATO and European Defence Community. The actual Minister is Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Organization

Minister of Defence

The head of the department is the Minister of Defence. He reports directly to the President of the Republic, Chief of the Army.

His mission is to organize and manage the country Defense Policy in liaison with other departments. He is also in charge of mobilizing troops and managing the military infrastructure. He is responsible of the French Armed forces security to the Parliament.[2]

Chief Of Defence Staff

The Chief of Defence Staff reports directly to the Minister. He is in charge of conducting operations, troops training, troops inspection, Programming the forces future, gathering and analyzing Intelligence, He is also in charge of maintaining relationships with other countries.
The Chief of Defence Staff is currently held by Admiral Édouard Guillaud.[3]

SGA

The General Secretary for Administration is in charge of the general administration of the Department. He assists the Minister for:

The position is held by Jean-Paul Bodin.[4]

DGA

The Direction Générale de l'Armement is the Research and development service of the Department. It is in charge of furnishing equipment to all branches of the Armed Forces and creating the future equipment of the armies. The service manages more than 80 projects and commanded more than 7.5 billions of euros to the national Industry in 2011.

Headquarters

The headquarters of the Ministry of Defence is located at the Hotel de Brienne, in the 14th Arrondissement of Paris.

In 2015, the Department is supposed to move into its brand new headquarters, called the Balardgon (the abbreviation of Balard Square where the building is constructed, and Pentagon because of the nature of the project). The project Balard will meet together the several Army departments in a single location. Nevertheless the project is far from being concluded, the Paris Administration arguing about the necessity of the project.[5]

Notes and references

  1. ↑ "Key defence figures 2014" (PDF) (in French). Defense.gouv.fr. (HTML Version)
  2. ↑ "Le rôle du ministère de la défense" (in French). Ministère de la Défense. 2014-02-24. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  3. ↑ "Fonction" (in French). Ministère de la Défense. 01/04/2014. Retrieved 27 September 2014. Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ↑ "Ses missions" (in French). Ministère de la Défense. 2014-04-04. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  5. ↑ "Le ministère de la Défense à Balard en 2015" (in French). Ministère de la Défense. 2014-09-11. Retrieved 27 September 2014.