Aiming to provide its Armed Forces with cutting edge defence systems and equipment, France invested vastly more on national R&D and R&T in the last few years than any other European Defence Agency (EDA) member state.
According to the latest EDA Collective and National Defence Data statistics covering the period 2017-2019, member states spent €22.96 billion ($26.26 billion) in individual R&D and R&T programmes.
France alone accounted for 63.98% (€14.14 billion) of this total, well ahead of Germany with €5.74 billion, which itself was about 25% of the total.
It was followed by Poland (€543.7 million), Spain (€514.9 million), the Netherlands (€511.3 million),
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