Renault is making a turn that many experts expected, reconfiguring capacities from its factories in Le Mans and Cleon to produce military drones. The French car giant is joining forces with aerospace expert Turgis Gaillard to breathe life into the “Chorus“ project – a family of long-range unmanned aircraft that should become the European answer to the Iranian Shahed. The scale is impressive: there is talk of a 10-year contract with the French Ministry of Defense worth around 1 billion euros.
Why Renault exactly? The answer lies in the “automotive DNA“. The military needs mass production and low cost – a territory in which Renault is the master. Instead of expensive aircraft components, engineers are using automotive materials and technologies, such as self-drilling rivets and optimized internal combustion engines from the Cléon plant. The goal is daunting for the competition in the sector - up to 600 drones per month, which would turn France into a real factory for “remotely controlled munitions“.
The project already has real outlines. In September 2025, the AAROK MALE prototype made its first flight - an impressive machine with a wingspan of 8 meters and a length of nearly 10 meters. Although there was a pilot in the cockpit during the first tests (for greater safety when collecting data), the serial version will be fully autonomous. With a speed of 400 km/h and the ability to operate at an altitude of 5,000 meters, Chorus will not be just a “kamikaze“, but a multifunctional platform for reconnaissance and precision strikes.
The experience of the conflicts in Ukraine has clearly shown that the future of war belongs to cheap and mass-produced drones that can hit targets hundreds of kilometers away without costing as much as a cruise missile. Renault enters this niche with the confidence of a manufacturer that knows how to optimize every bolt. This is a historic moment – for the first time in decades a major European automobile concern is so directly involved in the mass production of weapons systems.