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Naval Group signed a contract in Stockholm on 31 August 2026 to supply four frigates of defence and intervention to the Swedish Royal Navy. The deal was signed with Sweden’s defence ministry and FMV, less than four months after Sweden selected the FDI, with first delivery due in 2030.
Naval Group has completed trials of the Telewelder teleoperated welding arm at Technocampus Ocean under the European Jarvis project. The system is designed to let welders work remotely through a virtual reality headset, with the yard saying it can reduce heat exposure by up to 70% while improving safety, time and weld quality.
The French Navy said its recruitment needs will rise 20% in 2026 compared with 2025 incorporations, including the new national service due to start in September 2026. It said 600 contracts are open this year for that scheme, while Naval Group said it recruited 4,500 people over the past three years.
Naval Group’s Cherbourg site and UIMM Grand Ouest Normandie launched a training route in June 2026 for formage-dressage, a metalworking trade used on submarine structures. Ten candidates will take three months of initial training before a 24-month alternance at the yard.
About 15 Naval Group employees joined Thales’s cortAIx teams from March to July 2026, and have worked full-time at Ollioules since early July. The work is focused on AI for naval systems, including collaborative combat, mission autonomy for drone swarms, logistics support and tactical situation modules.
Naval Group has teamed up with French SME Starnav to integrate the Magellan astro-inertial navigation system into its surface ships. The system is designed to calculate a vessel’s position by using stars and the sun when GPS or GNSS signals are lost or jammed, with sea trials planned for 2027.
Naval Group cut steel for the first SNLE 3G submarine at Cherbourg on 20 March 2024, starting construction of the class that will replace France’s Le Triomphant boats. The first boat, L’Invincible, is due to be launched in 2036 and delivered at the end of 2037.
Seventeen middle-school pupils from Cherbourg-en-Cotentin met the site directors of Naval Group Cherbourg and Orano La Hague at a first Inspir’elles event held in late 2025. The session, backed by the DDETS, Normandy’s orientation agency, Naval Group, Orano and UIMM, was part of Industry Week.
Naval Group chief executive Pierre-Éric Pommellet appeared on BFM Business on 26 June, where he discussed export contracts for FDI frigates with Sweden and Greece and submarine deals with Indonesia and the Netherlands. He also referred to French programmes including the SNLE 3G and the new-generation aircraft carrier, and to the market conditions facing naval defence.