Explosions echo through a valley in southern France, sending up plumes of smoke as four Caesar self-propelled guns fire at distant targets in drills that mirror operations in Mali. It's a show of firepower organised by arms manufacturer Nexter to demonstrate the guns to the press and which underlines the role of the army in a conflict that has bolstered France's standing as a nation that can project military force.
Yet the message may fall on deaf ears in Paris. France's 31 billion euro ($40 billion) defence budget, already watered down in recent years, could be on the chopping block as President Francois Hollande seeks savings to offset a groaning deficit and weak economic growth.
Cuts could send shockwaves not only through the military but through the economy itself, where the industry employs 165,000 people and accounts for 2.25 percent of output, according to the World Bank, compared with 1.3 percent in Germany.
On Monday, the government presents a five-year blueprint for military strategy that the army fears could cut its staff and international bases and undermine France's capabilities in future global conflicts.
"We're right at the edge," a colonel at Canjuers, Western Europe's biggest army base, told Reuters, asking not to be quoted by name. "Certainly there wouldn't be any more Malis."
The document delivered on Monday will define the national security and defence strategy for the coming years, offering clues as to priorities but no hard figures. The actual 2014-19 military budget will be unveiled in the last quarter of 2013.
The military and defence contractors such as Nexter, headquartered in Versailles near Paris, say big cuts could hamper the ability of France, a nuclear power with a permanent UN Security Council seat, to react to international threats.
France intervened in conflicts in Libya and the Ivory Coast in 2011 and was alone in sending troops into Mali in January to drive out al Qaeda-linked fighters who had seized large areas of the West African country.
The government, battling to find 60 billion euros in savings over five years, has said it will freeze the defence budget for 2014 and 2015, amounting to a small reduction in real terms, but further out things are unclear.
The military's budget is currently 1.5 percent of GDP, already below the 2.0 percent minimum recommended by NATO, and some worry it could fall as low as 1.0 percent.
"I sense a bit of an 'eve-of-battle' atmosphere," the head of France's ground forces, General Bertrand Ract-Madoux, said at a recent debate on the future of the army.
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