2009: a great year for aerospace. The Paris Air Show will celebrate its centenary, but we also celebrate the 40th anniversary of Concorde’s maiden flight, and the first moonwalk. And we should not forget that it was just a century ago that Louis Blériot flew across the Channel for the first time. These anniversaries fall in a difficult context of crisis and a major overhaul of defence in France, set out in the White Paper on defence and national security. Its guidance, stated in the defence spending programme voted this spring, gives the main orientations of defence in the next 15 years, in particular concerning equipment, procurement strategy and industrial policy.
