KNDS France

KNDS France is a state-linked land-defence manufacturer headquartered in Versailles, France. Its lineage traces to GIAT Industries, formed in 1973 when the French government combined the army's weapons-manufacturing arsenals into a single state industrial group; the company was renamed Nexter in 2006, and in April 2024 its Nexter Systems subsidiary took the name KNDS France as part of the wider KNDS group, formed by the 2015 merger of Nexter with Germany's Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.

The company's traditional product lines are armoured vehicles, artillery systems, guns, turrets and ammunition, including the Leclerc main battle tank, the CAESAR self-propelled howitzer and the VBCI infantry fighting vehicle, as well as components of France's SCORPION army-modernisation programme such as the GRIFFON and JAGUAR vehicles.

Since 2022 KNDS France has also developed MATARIS, a family of loitering munitions built jointly with the French drone maker Delair and with EOS Technologie, with warheads supplied by its KNDS Ammo France subsidiary. The site lists two MATARIS aircraft: the quadcopter MX-10 DAMOCLES, in service with French forces since December 2025, and the coaxial rotorcraft MT-10, due from mid-2027. The MATARIS range also includes the fixed-wing MV-25 OSKAR and MV-100 VELOCE 330, neither of which has a page on this site.