It is not every day that a car manufacturer steps back into arms production. And even less so when that manufacturer is Renault. The military drone project that is beginning to take shape in France is not understood as a simple industrial diversification, but as a response to a strategic environment that has radically changed. The war has brought back prominence to mass production, cost reduction and the ability to scale quickly, just the areas where European automotive knows how to navigate.
Renault’s turn has a name. The project, known internally as Chorus, aims at a military drone designed for long-distance attack, observation and reconnaissance missions, with a logic of intensive use and contained costs. According to information published by L’Usine Nouvelle, the initiative is piloted by the Directorate générale de l’armement (DGA) and seeks to provide France with a teleoperated ammunition comparable in concept to the Shahed used by Russia. This approach connects with what the French public debate itself has been assuming since Ukraine: war penalizes those who cannot produce quickly and in volume.
An industrial alliance. Chorus is not a solo development nor an industry-driven initiative. The aforementioned media points out that the technical base of the drone comes from Turgis Gaillard, but it is the DGA that takes control of the program by identifying an operational deficiency and commissioning Renault to provide industrialization capacity. The DGA acts here as client and architect of the project, combining the agility of a defense SME with the scale, costs and processes of a large automobile manufacturer. A key point is that the project is part of the Pacte Drones, a State initiative to boost the military drone industry and better align needs and industrial capacity.
What can Renault contribute to the project? Renault’s added value in Chorus is less in the concept of the drone than in how to manufacture it. Sources consulted by L’Usine Nouvelle say that the manufacturer redesigned the device with a dedicated team to eliminate complexities and adapt it to mature industrial processes, with materials derived from automobiles and common assembly line techniques, such as self-piercing riveting. In this same framework, the medium provides the first technical data of the system, a drone of around 10 meters long by 8 meters in wingspan, with a speed of up to 400 km/h and a flight ceiling of 5,000 meters.
A historic plant. The Le Mans plant will become the main assembly point for the Chorus drone, although without altering its main automotive activity. Assembly of the drone structure should begin in spring 2025 and will be done on a dedicated chain within the facility. That line would not work permanently, it would only be activated when there are orders, depending on what the DGA requests. The project plans to involve between 100 and 200 employees out of a workforce of around 1,800 people. Even with this flexible scheme, the theoretical capacity could reach 600 drones per month if demand demanded it.
The conditions of the contract. The project schedule is marked by a validation phase prior to any large-scale commitment. A first dozen drones are expected to be delivered to the DGA before the summer of 2026 to evaluate the concept in real conditions and the project would be financed mainly with public funds. Only if this phase is satisfactory would the door be opened to a long-term agreement, with an estimated duration of ten years and a volume close to 1,000 million euros, always in potential terms and subject to official confirmation.
The decision to accelerate with Chorus comes after realizing that modern warfare penalizes those who cannot produce quickly and in volume. France has assumed that it was behind in consumable drones, just when these systems concentrate a good part of the destruction on the Ukrainian front. The Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, spoke in LCI of unprecedented alliances between automotive and defense to correct this gap, and the same article recalls an explicit political recognition of the delay. A few days ago, Emmanuel Macron summed it up like this: “Let’s be clear, we are late.”
When Renault already made history. The most direct precedent for Chorus dates back to the First World War, when Renault became one of the protagonists of the FT tank. The Tank Museum recalls that the FT introduced elements that marked modern armored warfare and that the program was strained by scale, industrial problems and bureaucratic friction. The museum estimates that 3,177 tanks were produced until the Armistice, after orders that skyrocketed. So Renault’s move with Chorus leaves an open question that goes beyond the drone itself. Whether this orientation towards defense responds to an exceptional situation or marks the beginning of a new stage for the European automotive industry remains to be seen.
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