ABSTRACT
France’s arms-export policy has succeeded in maintaining a domestic defence industry generally capable of supplying the French armed forces with the equipment they need (there are a few significant exceptions, such as uninhabited aerial vehicles), and the underlying assumption that arms sales are in the national interest has survived despite a litany of scandals over the years. The Taiwanese affaire actually marked a turning point for French arms-export policy. Although the sale of the frigates to Taiwan – followed, later in the 1990s, by Mirage 2000 combat aircraft – was a boost for the French defence industry during a period when its markets were contracting following the end of the Cold War, the exposure of dubious practices increased the pressure within the French government for an overhaul of the regulations governing sales of material. In France, politicians have tended to absolve themselves of responsibility for decisions regarding arms exports by relying instead on the efficacy of the government’s bureaucratic machinery.
