Eurosatory 2024

21/06/202426/06/2024 Paolo Valpolini Eurosatory 2024

For the 16th time Eurosatory opens its doors to the land defence industry, to which along the years security and then emergency services were added.

With the war between Russia and Ukraine still ongoing, platforms, weapons and systems related to peer-to-peer confrontation in a new multi-domain battlespace dominate the defence side of the exhibition, other issued being the need to switch to an industry model capable to sustain a long lasting confrontation, something that was not much forecasted as most hypothesis were made on wars lasting a few months and not extending for years. The need to increase the ammunition production and that of deploying a higher number of platforms are just two examples.

In this uncertain world police and security forces are key to prevent terrorism and violent crimes, which now go well beyond the physical domain, cybercrime becoming an issue.

As for emergency services, natural and human-induced catastrophes are a daily issue.

Some 2,000 exhibitors of those three sectors are showcasing their products at the Parc des Expositions de Villepinte during the five-day event organised by COGES.

This year the defence industry community will lack the colleagues of one nation, Israel. Less than three weeks from the inauguration, the French government decided to ban Israeli industries from Eurosatory. Considering how long the organisation starts when a company decides to take part into such an event, it is easy to imagine the damages caused, financial ones first but not only. Of course COGES could only accept that decision.

Without entering into any political issue, we must underline that no explanation was given for that decision. Was it based on political issues? Was it due to security reasons? Who knows? But if a political decision is not declared as such, it becomes useless. If the answer is security, then what will do France in a few weeks, ask Israeli athletes not to join the Olympics?

A decision that casts a shadow over the 2024 edition of what is considered by all the benchmark of land defence exhibitions.

That said, Eurosatory 2024 was dense of novelties, new systems being unveiled at pace in the first two days, sometime the events even overlapping. Hereafter EDR On-Line readers will find the reports over a selection of those novelties, and we underline “a selection”, as covering 100% of Eurosatory is definitely mission impossible!