France Publishes 2035 National Security Plan Warning of Sea, Space, and Hybrid Conflict

While traditional defense doctrines often treat hybrid warfare as a secondary nuisance to conventional military deterrence, the French government's newly published 2035 national security framework explicitly reverses that hierarchy. The 40-page document, released Tuesday by the Haut-commissariat à la stratégie et au plan (HCSP), asserts that critical digital infrastructure, the seabed, and outer space will operate as the primary domains of strategic confrontation over the next decade.[1][4]

The report, titled 'France 2035, France 2050 - Focus Défense et sécurité nationale,' models a durably degraded security landscape. 'Critical digital infrastructure, the seabed and outer space will increasingly become areas of strategic confrontation between states, as well as between private and state actors,' the report states. The HCSP projects that an increasing share of global power—and corresponding vulnerability—is concentrating in spaces that remain largely invisible to the civilian population, requiring a fundamental realignment of how the state protects its assets.[1][4]

This strategic pivot is driven by an immediate escalation in multi-domain pressure. French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed this week that France and neighboring European nations have absorbed intensified Russian hybrid operations. 'In recent weeks, the threat—particularly the Russian hybrid threat—facing Europeans and France has intensified,' Macron told reporters following a national security meeting at the Élysée. Between 2022 and 2024, the number of Russia-attributed hybrid warfare operations across Europe surged from fewer than 10 instances to nearly 50, systematically testing energy grids, communication networks, and democratic institutions.[2][4][5]

Hybrid warfare deliberately exploits the regulatory and operational gray zone between peace and war. By combining conventional military posturing with cyber intrusions, disinformation campaigns, and economic coercion, adversarial actors complicate the traditional threshold for invoking collective defense treaties. The French framework acknowledges that these methods are designed to destabilize societies and degrade infrastructure without triggering a direct conventional military response.[1][5]

The seabed and outer space represent the most acute structural vulnerabilities for modern European states. Undersea cable networks carry roughly 95 percent of global internet traffic and trillions of dollars in daily financial transactions, while orbital assets govern everything from GPS navigation to early warning missile detection. The HCSP identifies these domains as highly susceptible to deniable attacks, where attributing sabotage to a specific state actor is technically and politically difficult.[1][4]

To secure these vectors, the framework recommends fast-tracking the transformation of the French Armed Forces. Military planners are urging a definitive shift away from the expeditionary counter-terrorism model that defined the 2010s, prioritizing instead large-scale, high-intensity combat readiness. This structural overhaul includes adopting a war-economy approach to defense procurement and expanding the military's operational reserve from 40,000 to 100,000 personnel by 2035.[4][6]

The operational burden of this shift will fall heavily on the French Navy and the Air and Space Force. The Marine Nationale will be required to expand its deep-sea surveillance and intervention capabilities to protect underwater infrastructure across France's extensive exclusive economic zone. Simultaneously, the Air and Space Force is expected to accelerate the deployment of orbital space-control systems to monitor and defend French satellites against kinetic and non-kinetic interference.[4][6]

Beyond physical military assets, a central pillar of the 2035 strategy is reducing Europe's reliance on foreign technology. Earlier this year, Paris laid out plans to establish a Digital Sovereignty Observatory to map the government's and associated businesses' dependence on non-European digital infrastructure. The HCSP report reinforces this initiative, arguing that technological autonomy is a strict prerequisite for national security in an environment where digital networks are routinely weaponized.[4]

Domestically, the framework treats societal resilience as a core component of national defense. The HCSP warns that future crises will unfold primarily in the cognitive domain, making the ability to identify and neutralize information-based attacks essential to maintaining state cohesion. In response, the French government is activating territorial authorities to defend critical infrastructure at the local level and is reportedly developing a survival manual to help households prepare for cyber incidents, security crises, and armed conflict.[1][2][3]

Rather than pursuing full European military integration, the 2035 objective focuses on building rapid-response collaboration among like-minded allies. The report argues that the continent must develop the capacity to act quickly and decisively, relying on coalitions of the willing rather than waiting for unanimous institutional consensus. This approach aims to deliver results at the speed required by hybrid threats, which often bypass traditional diplomatic timelines.[1][4]

The budgetary effort required of the nation, the report states, must align with a clear European objective: the ability to prevent any attack aimed at testing the continent's unity and credibility. The HCSP has defined the necessary architecture to secure France's interests in the seabed, space, and the cognitive domain. The speed at which the government can fund and deploy these capabilities ahead of the 2026 budget negotiations will determine whether the 2035 plan functions as a deterrent or merely a diagnosis.[1][4]