France open to defence deals with Canada despite its push for arms autonomy, envoy says

France’s new ambassador in Ottawa says her country is open to working closer with Canada on defence procurement, despite its push for Europe to develop a fully autonomous arms industry.

“In the defence sector and in other equally strategic sectors, France advocates for a European preference in procurement,” French Ambassador Hélène Farnaud-Defromont said in a French-language interview.

“The ideal for us would be to achieve 100 per cent European content but, once again, we’re being realistic. We know we’re all going to need a bit of time to reach that goal.”

Farnaud-Defromont said France can help Canada build up its defence base by sharing best practices.

“France is the only member state of the European Union today to have retained a comprehensive defence industrial and technological base,” she said. “We have some really interesting ideas to put forward and develop together.”

In February, Canada became the first non-European partner in an EU loan program for joint defence projects called Security Action for Europe, or SAFE. Only one contract for Canada has emerged from the program so far.

The program allows EU countries to access low-interest loans to buy military gear and weapons. It’s part of an initiative called ReArm Europe aimed at weaning the continent off its reliance on American weapons.

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“The fact that Canada has joined SAFE, I think that’s a very good thing,” she said. “We now need to see things come to fruition. We need this partnership to actually take shape.”

Much of Canada’s defence industrial base is made up of branches of American corporations. Farnaud-Defromont would not speculate on how that continental integration might affect Canada’s participation in SAFE.

The ambassador said 65 per cent of the components in each piece of defence equipment France procures are of European origin – a threshold the EU is trying to apply to SAFE projects.

Farnaud-Defromont said the people of France are “extremely concerned and worried” about the war in Ukraine and its implications for freedom across Europe.

Canada’s strong support for Ukraine is deeply appreciated across the continent, she said.

“We are in fact facing an all-out war on European soil following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Farnaud-Defromont said.

“The front line is just a few hundred kilometres from Paris. It is not that far away.”

She said France is still trying to work toward peace through multilateralism, despite dozens of armed conflicts that – like those in the Middle East – have implications far beyond one region.

“The international order has been profoundly disrupted,” said Farnaud-Defromont, a career diplomat for 32 years.

“The environment in which I work today as a French diplomat bears no resemblance to the one I knew.”

While France is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, it has always maintained some autonomy.

France pulled out of NATO’s command structure for most of the Cold War and advocated for nuclear energy autonomy to avoid relying on others for electricity.

The country has for years advocated a vision of European collective security that runs at odds with American leadership. France ramped up its push for continental autonomy after U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands for control of Greenland.

“We have long been committed to developing, within the European Union and within NATO, a European pillar, and within the European Union a community that is also strategic,” Farnaud-Defromont said.

“We are by no means pleased with the situation within NATO, which is, to say the least, very confused.”

Kerry Buck, a former Canadian ambassador to NATO, has warned that Ottawa would be less safe if the alliance turned its focus more to the defence of Europe.

“Canada had long resisted the creation of a European pillar within NATO for fear of being sidelined, and because we didn’t want the EU exercising ‘strategic autonomy’ in decision-making, or otherwise competing with NATO,” she wrote in a June, 2025 commentary in Policy Magazine.