France to develop anti-satellite laser weapons: minister

France plans to develop anti-satellite laser weapons, its defence minister said Thursday, laying out French ambitions to close the gap on rivals who are developing new arms and surveillance capabilities in space. The United States, Russia and China have been heavily investing in technology for space, which is seen as a new military frontier. The ability to detect spy satellites and potentially destroy or cripple them is seen as a key capability.

“If our satellites are threatened, we intend to blind those of our adversaries,” Defence Minister Florence Parly said.  “We reserve the right and the means to be able to respond: that could imply the use of powerful lasers deployed from our satellites or from patrolling nano-satellites.” Around 2,000 active satellites are currently estimated to be orbiting the Earth, mostly to relay commercial and military communications, but also to track the weather and for spying.

“We will develop powerful lasers,” Parly said during a speech at an air force base outside the city of Lyon. “It’s an area in which France has fallen behind. But we will catch up.”  Other weapons capabilities could include machineguns capable of shooting the solar panels of enemy satellites to disable them, a government source said on condition of anonymity. Experts say that the United States, Russia, China and India are capable of destroying enemy satellites using missiles fired from Earth, and probably also by engineering deliberate collisions.

An official from the NATO military alliance told AFP last month that there was no known deployment of space-based weapons in orbit, but concerns were growing about “more aggressive behaviour” from China and Russia. “Our allies and adversaries are militarising space... we need to act,” Parly said during her speech, adding that the first capabilities under her strategy should be ready by 2025 and be completed by 2030. In September last year, Parly accused a Russian satellite called Luch Olymp of attempting to spy on France’s Athena-Fidus satellite.