France to hold international Space Summit in early 2026

By Ilayda Cakirtekin

ISTANBUL (AA) - French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday announced the country will hold an international Space Summit at the beginning of 2026.

"In the coming months, and at the very beginning of next year, we will organize an international space summit in France, where we will bring together public and private players, all our major international partners," Macron said at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget.

In an environment where SpaceX has "disrupted" the market, Amazon is entering the field and China is "not lagging" behind, Macron urged Europeans to be "very clear-eyed" and to become a "space power" once again.

"Our ability across the entire sector to remain at the forefront of space, to recover what we may have lost, and to prepare for the battles of tomorrow will be key if we want to stay in the game of major international powers," he said.

Stressing that Europe is "just one step away" from being "completely out" of the LEO constellation game, Macron urged for acceleration and increase in collective investment.

"It is absolutely essential that we move forward, that we accelerate—and I believe it is absolutely essential that we do this as Europeans," he said.

Reiterating the "importance" of LEO (low-earth orbit) constellations, Macron called for "European" ones and noted they can "not accept" depending on "non-European" constellations.

"So today, with Eutelsat OneWeb, we hold the monopoly on a LEO constellation that is neither American nor Chinese. That is a strategic treasure," he said. "We must scale it up. That means we must absolutely speed up the deployment of this constellation, densify it, expand it even more, faster and more forcefully."

Reaffirming that he would build their national space strategy by the end of October, Macron signaled future cooperation with Germany, Italy, UK as well as with United Arab Emirates and India.