France, June 18 -- The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the BPCE banking group have signed a €300 million loan agreement in favor of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the security and defence sector in France.This is the first operation signed by the EIB in France as part of the recently announced €3 billion envelope to support companies active in the defence value chain. The EIB has increased intermediated loans and guarantees available for key defence-industry segment to €3 billion from €1 billion originally, and has signed a first deal with Deutsche Bank last week.The loan granted to BPCE is specifically intended to address the financing needs of French SMEs investing in cybersecurity, surveillance, r...