PARIS — France has ordered 42 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault Aviation in a deal price greater than €5 billion (U.S. $5.5 billion), the Armed Forces Ministry announced Friday.
The acquisition comes as French lawmakers express concerns in regards to the Franco-German project to develop a successor to the Rafale. The Future Combat Air System, because it’s known, isn’t expected to enter service before 2045 or 2050, in line with the French Senate’s defense committee.
The French defense procurement agency notified Dassault Aviation in addition to equipment suppliers Thales, Safran and MBDA of the contract for the fifth production phase of the aircraft, the ministry said.
“This is great news for our sovereignty and security, and for our armed forces, which can profit from additional Rafales with modernized operational capabilities,” Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said in an announcement.
The Rafale entered service with the French Navy in 2004 and the French Air Force in 2006, and has seen motion in Afghanistan, Libya, Mali, Iraq and Syria. The newest contract brings the whole variety of Rafales ordered by France to 234, including a special order in 2021 for 12 fighters to interchange aircraft transferred to Greece.
Export orders for the Rafale currently stand at 261 recent aircraft; customers including Egypt, India, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. As well as, Greece and Croatia have each bought 12 secondhand Rafales from the French Air Force.
The brand new aircraft, meant for the Air and Space Force, can be one-seater versions and fitted to the F4 production standard, for which development began in 2018. The usual is concentrated on connectivity and includes MBDA’s Mica medium-range air-to-air missile in addition to an upgrade of the Spectra self-defense system developed by Thales. Safran supplies the fighter’s M88 afterburning turbofan engine.
The jets are to received upgrades to the F5 standard within the 2030s, in line with the ministry. The Senate has called for Dassault Aviation to begin work on the upgrade — which could include a loyal wingman UAV based on the European nEUROn combat drone program — as early as 2024 as a consequence of the uncertainty across the Future Combat Air System. The FCAS could cost two to thrice as much as a Rafale, while exports could be subject to approval by the German partner, senators said in a November report.
Until FCAS becomes operational, France will need a top-notch fighter to make sure the airborne component of its nuclear deterrent, the defense committee said.
The Rafale is taken into account a 4.5-generation fighter, much like the Eurofighter Typhoon and Saab’s Gripen, and includes stealth technology, the flexibility to achieve supersonic speed without using afterburners, engage in combat beyond visual range.
Dassault Aviation said existing Rafale orders, including the brand new contract, means the jet’s production line can be lively for the following 10 years.
The corporate received orders for 60 Rafales in 2023, including the 42 for France and 18 for Indonesia, compared with 92 export orders in 2022, in line with financials released individually on Friday. Deliveries last 12 months amounted to 13 aircraft, missing the goal of 15 — ultimately one less fighter than it delivered in 2022. The corporate’s backlog for the Rafale increased to 211 at the top of December, including 141 for export; its backlog at the top of 2022 was 164.
The newest deal is the primary major expenditure under France’s 2024-2030 military budget law, and can support greater than 7,000 jobs across greater than 400 firms, the ministry said.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He began his profession at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.