DGA: the missions and industrial weight of France's defence procurement agency

An institution founded in 1961

The Délégation ministérielle pour l'armement (DMA) was created in 1961, under General de Gaulle's presidency, to bring together the technical and industrial armament services. It became the Délégation générale pour l'armement in 1977, and then the Direction générale de l'armement (DGA) in 2009. It is headed by the Delegate General for Armament.

According to the strategic vision document published by the DGA in 2023, the organisation has around 10,500 staff, mostly engineers and technicians, 80% of them civilians, including more than 4,500 technical and scientific experts.

Five missions

The DGA describes its work in terms of five missions:

• equipping and supporting the armed forces in a sovereign manner, as contracting authority for the defence system: it defines technical requirements, contracts with industry and ensures end-to-end performance;
• providing strategic technological and industrial foresight;
• maintaining the foundations of nuclear deterrence and developing the ministry's cyber capability;
• promoting pragmatic cooperation and supporting exports;
• steering and supporting the defence industrial and technological base (BITD).

The interface with the industrial base

France's defence industrial base is structured around some ten large industrial prime contractors, which bring together more than 4,000 start-ups, SMEs and mid-sized firms, as well as laboratories and research institutes. The DGA sits at the centre of this system: it places orders, conducts testing and qualification of equipment, and ensures that critical skills are sustained.

Order volumes give a measure of this role. In 2023 the DGA placed around €20.3 billion in orders with the defence industry, a record level according to the Ministry of the Armed Forces, of which almost €9 billion in December alone. These orders, the first tangible steps in implementing the 2024-2030 LPM, covered the air, land, naval and space domains. Examples cited included 42 Rafale to the F4 standard and 420 Serval vehicles.

The "war economy" as a guiding principle

The 2023 strategic vision, signed by Delegate General Emmanuel Chiva, highlights the transition to a war economy, presented as a lasting transformation rather than a temporary response. It rests on:

• increasing production capacity and reducing lead times;
• building up stocks of critical materials and components;
• supply-chain resilience, with large prime contractors asked to secure their subcontracting base in return for greater visibility on public orders.

The document also stresses strategic autonomy, both national and European, to be approached "without dogmatism", and innovation, through the Defence Innovation Agency attached to the DGA.

Expertise and testing

The DGA operates expertise and test centres across France, covering areas such as aeronautics, missiles, naval and land systems, information superiority and CBRN. These resources allow the State to qualify equipment independently of manufacturers, a distinctive feature of the French model.

A growing European dimension

The DGA is also involved in cooperative programmes, either directly with other States or through OCCAR. It further takes part in implementing European instruments supporting the defence industry, which add an extra layer to the relationship between national requirements and industrial capacity. This European dimension requires the DGA to reconcile national sovereignty objectives with the pooling of resources and workshare arrangements that multinational programmes involve.

Key takeaways

The DGA is at once buyer, engineer, tester and architect of defence industrial policy. With rising LPM appropriations, its ability to turn budgets into contracts, and then to support manufacturers as they ramp up, is a key parameter for the entire aerospace and defence sector.