When you arrive at the Eurosatory Land Security & Defense show which opens in Paris tomorrow morning everything will be neat and tidy, ready and waiting for you. But have you ever wondered how this temporary small town emerges from the ground?
I was wandering the halls yesterday amongst the fork-lift trucks, the ladders, the hammering and painting and took a few photos to show you.
As you can see some of the stands are ready, plants and all
While others are…well, a little behind schedule:
This is one secret weapon you will not see:
because it is not the new cannon I thought it was but a fork-lift truck carrying a large roll of carpet!
The French Defense Ministry stand this year recreates a battlefield:
but the underside of the vehicles have been discreetly masked
I’m assuming to avoid indelicate visitors from crawling underneath to take photos as happened at the last Eurosatory show. This is obviously a phenomenon of concern to a number of exhibitors who have placed rows of plants or a curtain of chains to mask the underbelly of their vehicles.
The Dassault stand is showing a model of Franco-British cooperation: the Telemos, based on a BAE-designed and -flown Mantis, but the model shows for the first time three payloads on the underside of the unmanned air vehicle (UAV).
The French Defense Minister will not be officially opening the show tomorrow afternoon as planned as he has flown to Afghanistan in the wake of the suicide bombing yesterday in which four French soldiers were killed and five injured. Jean-Yves Le Drian will be replaced at the show by the Minister Delegate for Veterans’ Affairs, Kader Arif.
All photos: Christina Mackenzie