France has the largest space budget in Europe and is, with Germany, one of the top contributors to the European Space Agency (ESA). It is home to the Guiana Spaceport, with excellent conditions for launch to the geostationary orbit. The French space agency CNES, under the joint supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry of Defence, is responsible for formulating and executing space policies. France also hosts the headquarters of the European Space Agency (ESA) and several centres and services for the European navigation programme Galileo.
Recent policy activities aim to strengthen technology development and innovation in downstream activities. The cross-ministerial government Future Investment Plan (PIA), established in 2010, is providing additional funding for the development of next-generation satellites and downstream products and services.
Downstream services and product development and commercialisation were further supported by the 2016 creation of four ‘boosters’, or accelerators, near existing regional non-space clusters (maritime, transport, energy, agriculture, environment). These boosters have so far created more than 35 promising projects that have been selected for further funding and support. Following this initial success, another three boosters were designated in 2018, including a cluster in French Guiana, addressing themes such as natural hazards and resources management, future mobility, agriculture and tourism (French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, 2018[1])
France is also in the process of formulating a new military space strategy, focussing on reinforcing surveillance and offensive capabilities as well as the resilience of individual satellites and systems. In an effort to guide long-term policy decisions, CNES has launched the Space’ibles project, a multidisciplinary foresight exercise uniting both space and non-space actors.
In 2017, the French institutional budget estimates for space activities totalled some EUR 2.4 billion (USD 2.7 billion), a 26% increase in real terms since 2008. Of this, 61% funded the French multilateral programme, while 36% was dedicated to ESA and 3% to EUMETSAT. Almost half of the commitments funded the launcher programme (46%), followed by earth observation (14%), defence (11%) and science (10%).
Government research institutes and laboratories play an important role in R&D and innovation activities, with dedicated organisations such as CNES, the National Aerospace Research Centre (ONERA) and CNRS, the National Centre for Scientific Research. A lot of research is conducted at universities and in the highly-regarded aerospace and mechanical engineering schools.
The French space industry has activities in all segments of the space sector. Both upstream and downstream sectors are strongly export-oriented. It is estimated that French manufacturers accounted for some 75% of European space manufacturing exports in 2017 (French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, 2019[2]).
There are systems integrators in both satellite and launcher production, including Airbus and Thales Alenia Space, and a multitude of companies producing subsystems and equipment. Airbus is part of the OneWeb Manufacturing consortium and in 2017, it opened a facility near Toulouse to produce prototypes for the satellites in the planned mega-constellation for satellite broadband. The bulk of the satellites will be produced in Florida. Important industry segments include launch services (Ariane Group), launcher and satellite manufacturing (in particular earth observation satellites). In 2017, space manufacturing activities in France generated some EUR 7.9 billion (USD 8.9 billion) in unconsolidated revenues, with military space orders accounting for 27% of the total. It employed 15 000 persons, mainly in the Southwest and Ile de France regions. (GIFAS, 2018[3]).
Satellite operations and earth observation are some of the most significant downstream activities, with a growing number of start-ups providing value-added services for sectors such as maritime, energy, agriculture and finance. Satellite operator Eutelsat reported revenues of EUR 1.4 billion (USD 1.5 billion) in 2017-18, with some 560 persons employed in France (Eutelsat, 2018[4]).
France ranks among the leading countries worldwide in space scientific production in the OECD space literature dataset, with a stable share in global space publications since 2000. France’s share in space-related patent applications has doubled between 2002-05 and 2012-15. Space-related official development assistance projects in the period 2000-16 focussed on environmental management and fisheries, with Viet Nam and Indonesia as top recipient countries.
