France passes bill to increase military spending to $460Bln
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In January this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said that military spending in France would increase considerably for the 2024-2030 cycle.
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French soldiers in an AMX-10RC in Afghanistan's Surobi district in September 2010 (AFP)
France's Parliament on Thursday passed a bill aimed at increasing military spending which would allocate a record amount of 413 billion euros ($460 billion) in 2024-2030.
The bill was passed with the majority of votes in the Senate, with 313 voting in favor while 17 voted against.
On Wednesday, the country's lower house, the French National Assembly, also adopted the bill.
In January this year, French President Emmanuel Macron said that military spending in France would increase considerably for the 2024-2030 cycle.
The decision to allocate a huge chunk of public expenditures to boost the military came against the backdrop of widespread mass protests over his pension reform plan.
Read more: France: Muslims fear for safety as far-right normalizes racist speech, violence
Macron's plan involved an increase of 413 billion euros ($446 billion) to the army in 2024-2030, up from 295 billion euros in the previous budget.
A pretext for suggesting such radical measures is that the head of state had scheduled several reforms prior to the outbreak of the pandemic, but their coming to being now has sparked strikes of a scale unseen in the past 30 years.
Besides the protest against the pension reforms, France has been rocked by violent upheaval for days following the police shooting of a teenager last month.
Observers say that the events have uncovered severe racial tensions in France as protestors accuse authorities of targeting minorities.
The economy has suffered severely as a result of protesters looting shops and destroying private and public property.
Read more: Macron to allocate expenditures on military rather than pensions
