Israeli orders for French arms experienced ‘a record year’ in 2024

French arms exports to Israel in 2024 reached an amount not seen in eight years amid a significant rise of French weapons sales globally, according to Mediapart.

The French media outlet obtained the defence ministry's 2025 arms exports report, which has not yet been made public.

It shows that while in 2024, France "signed its second-best historical performance" worldwide, with 21.6bn euros in orders, Israel is among the states experiencing a record year for French arms purchases.

According to the report, orders from Israel totalled 27.1m euros in 2024, an amount not seen since 2017.

Beyond these orders, deliveries to Israel amounted to 16.1m euros, a figure in line with the average for the past ten years.

The report also indicates that while the number of licenses granted to export arms to Israel decreased from 75 in 2023 to 50 in 2024, the authorised amount more than doubled, from 176.2m euros to 387.8m euros.

The issue of French arms sales to Israel has been highly controversial since the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which has killed over 64,000 Palestinians so far.

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Investigative media and NGOs have repeatedly pointed to deliveries of French military equipment to Israel despite its ongoing genocide, while MPs have accused the government of a lack of transparency and parliamentary oversight on the matter.

The ministry's repeated justifications are reiterated in the report: "In the context of the war in Gaza, France is not delivering weapons to Israel, but is exporting components intended specifically for integration into defensive systems or for re-export to third countries.

"Two thirds of these orders correspond to components that will be integrated into equipment re-exported to third countries, consistent with the rise in generalised demand for defence equipment and the global position of Israeli industry."

In March, in a written response to a communist senator, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu wrote that the "very small portion of exports that actually turn out to be intended for the Israeli armed forces" consists of air defence equipment intended for the Israeli Iron Dome anti-missile system.

The minister declassified a document in June to support his statements.

'Essential for ground operations'

In the 2025 report, the ministry downplays the increase in Israeli orders, which represent only "0.13 percent of total orders recorded".

By comparison, French arms orders accounted for $1.25bn for Iraq, $718m for the United Arab Emirates and $170m for Saudi Arabia.

As for state-approved licenses, the system by which the government can ensure that sales comply with France's international commitments on arms control and non-proliferation, including by stipulating conditions, the minister justifies their doubling to Israel by "the need to authorise, as happens approximately every three years, a flow of munitions components that will be re-exported to France to meet national needs".

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In 2024, two licenses worth 122m euros were granted to Israel in the ML3 category ("ammunition and rocket adjustment devices"), six licenses worth 6.4m euros were issued for ML5 equipment ("fire control, surveillance and warning equipment") and three licenses, worth 5m euros, for the M15 category ("imaging or countermeasures equipment").

Aymeric Elluin, head of arms advocacy at Amnesty International France, told Mediapart that "these imaging and fire control equipment are essential for conducting ground operations".

The report indicates that in 2024, France explicitly or implicitly refused 54 license requests, without specifying for each country, Mediapart reports. Licenses do not automatically result in an order or delivery.

While France is a signatory to several texts prohibiting the delivery of weapons if there is a risk they can be used to commit war crimes, Paris is impervious to demands emanating from civil society to enforce a total embargo on arms sales to Israel, unlike for countries such as Russia and Iran.

Activists believe that banning arms sales would, however, be a more meaningful way to exert pressure on Israel to stop the war than Paris's announcement it is recognising the Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly later this month.