This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.

A number of European countries have increased arms production since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and have made further spending commitments since President Donald Trump returned to office.

France, the world’s second-biggest arms exporter, has set out to double its military spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2027 in line with other members of the NATO defense alliance.

Manufacturers have already started to ramp up production. At one factory in northern France, owned by the defense group Thalès, 300 employees produce circuit boards for fighter jets. The factory was previously in jeopardy, according to site manager Thierry Charleux.

“Historically, this site has been producing SIM cards. In fact, this industry is declining over the long term because, for instance, if you buy an iPhone, you have now what you call eSIM embedded in the smartphone that you would buy, and so over the long term, in fact, the physical SIM card will disappear,” he said. “And so we are now making a conversion towards this new activity.”

Capacity is rising at existing facilities, too. For example, radar production at Thalès has tripled in the past four years.

"We have hired 9,000 people over the last three years in defense capabilities in France, just to take that country,” said director of strategy Philippe Keyrer. “We have invested around Є750 million of capital investments for our factories for defence in France over the last three years, and this was before any new stance in Europe about what is happening in the world and how we need to somehow rearm Europe.”

It's a similar picture at other companies. One factory owned by automaker Renault has switched from making car dashboards to military aircraft calculators. Renault is also planning to start drone production, though that will be in Ukraine.

There’s a similar trend across the board, according to Boris Cochet, associate director of the Cylad business consultancy, which advises companies in the defence sector.

“So I will take three examples,” said Boris. “The first one is the production of the Caesar cannon; it's a mobile cannon that is produced by KNDS France. The initial production rate, let's say 2023, was around two. And now they are producing up to 12.”

“If we take MBDA, French production of Aster missiles — in fact, they are reducing the lead time to produce one unit from 42 months to 18 months. And we can take examples of smaller companies like Turgis and Gaillard that are accelerating the tempo for the development, especially for drones.”

Back at the old SIM card factory in northern France, Thalès is planning to launch a second production line by the end of the year.