France

France's Military Spending Holds at 2.03% of GDP as Debt Load Tops 118%

France, classified here within the Europe region, combines one of the continent's larger economies with an elevated public debt load and a standing nuclear arsenal, according to the figures compiled for this briefing.

Economy and Fiscal Position France's economy was worth $3.16 trillion in 2024, per World Bank WDI figures, with GDP per capita at $46,103 and a population of 68.55 million. The IMF's 2026 World Economic Outlook puts government debt at 118.4 percent of GDP, exceeding the size of the economy itself as measured by the GDP figure above. Foreign exchange reserves stood at $86.2 billion as of 2025, per IMF IFS figures.

Defense Spending and Capability SIPRI's 2025 figures put French military expenditure at $68.0 billion, equivalent to 2.027 percent of GDP under SIPRI's own GDP series. That ratio should not be recalculated against the World Bank GDP figure above; SIPRI's milex/GDP share is tied to its own denominator, not the World Bank's. Active military personnel numbered 203,000 as of 2022, per the Correlates of War National Material Capabilities (COW NMC) dataset, which also assigns France a composite index of national capability (CINC) score of 0.010944385 for that year — a score reflecting the COW framework's blend of demographic, industrial and military inputs rather than spending alone. Separately, the FAS Nuclear Notebook counts 290 nuclear warheads in France's arsenal as of 2025.

Governance V-Dem's 2025 figures place France's electoral democracy index at 0.865 and liberal democracy index at 0.8, both on a 0-1 scale. The same source puts state capacity at 0.967, the highest of the three governance measures recorded here, indicating that V-Dem's assessment treats French state institutions as functioning at near-maximal capacity on its scale.

Energy Primary energy consumption stood at 9.0716 exajoules in 2024, per Our World in Data's energy series, while electricity generation reached 569.98 TWh in 2025. Oil and gas production figures in this dataset are dated: 10.533 TWh of oil output and 0.236 TWh of gas output, both from 2016 — nearly a decade old and not indicative of current production. Set against the 2024-25 consumption and generation figures above, these production numbers point to a country that, on this dataset alone, meets most domestic energy demand from sources other than its own oil and gas extraction.

Sources: World Bank WDI, IMF WEO, IMF IFS, SIPRI Milex, COW NMC, FAS Nuclear Notebook, V-Dem v15, Our World in Data (Energy)