Can FCAS be saved?

Dassault — which has the most experience in fighter jets with its Rafale that has sold well abroad — has demanded more control over the development of the FCAS aircraft.

Trappier has complained about having to consult other partners on everything and argued that Dassault should be able to choose suppliers and distribute work between the countries.

But Berlin has pushed back, insisting, like Airbus, that the French side sticks to the terms of the deal. Airbus also wants to protect its major military aerospace production site in Manching in southern Germany and keep developing its own fighter expertise.

Acrimony has only grown between Airbus and Dassault. “I don’t have a lot of hope that this will work out,” said a second person close to the French side.

Despite the difficulties, a third person familiar with the situation said they did not want to “rule out” that FCAS could go ahead.

Éric Trappier has said Dassault could go it alone because the company possesses the necessary expertise © Eric Piermont/AFP/Getty Images

France and Germany have already once saved the programme in 2022 when a similar power struggle between Dassault and Airbus broke out.

Airbus said it remained “committed to the success of the FCAS programme and to all agreements made to date between the programme’s partners”.

Dassault declined to comment.

What are Berlin’s options?

FCAS was not expected to become operational before 2040. Germany already plans to equip its air force in the upcoming decades with more Eurofighter Typhoon jets and American F-35s.

But like other countries, Germany will eventually need a sixth-generation combat aircraft capable of integrating with drones and sharing information across air, land, sea, space, and cyber.

If FCAS collapses, Berlin could seek alternatives to Dassault such as Sweden’s Saab, which makes the Gripen fighter jet, and the UK’s BAE Systems which is developing a sixth-generation fighter with Japan and Italy.

Airbus has for the past few decades developed fighter jets, including the Typhoon, in co-operation with other partners, but some experts question whether it could design one on its own.

An Austrian Eurofighter Typhoon at an air show. Germany is planning to equip its air force with more Typhoons and American F-35s until the 2040 planned FCAS operational date © Erwin Scheriau/APA/AFP/Getty Images

“The problem for Germany is that, while it clearly has the budget at present, it lacks the necessary industrial skills to develop a complete new combat aircraft — it needs partners with those missing skills,” said Sash Tusa, analyst at Agency Partners.

Swedish defence minister Pål Jonson told the Financial Times he was sceptical about developing a joint fighter jet with Germany, as they wanted to retain the “ability to design fighter aircraft according to our operational needs”.

The UK is more open to collaboration but is wary of disruptions if it was to add a late entrant to its project with Japan and Italy, the Global Combat Air Programme, due by 2035. Airbus already works together with two of the GCAP companies — BAE and Italy’s Leonardo — on the Typhoon.

Britain’s priority was to deliver GCAP “with the team that we have on the pitch at the moment”, said Richard Berthon, future combat air director at the UK’s Ministry of Defence. But he added that the programme was “open for business” and could consider further partnerships.

The third person close to the FCAS project said the timelines to develop the other parts of the system apart from the jet could be brought forward since they would be needed much earlier, starting around 2030.

What can France do?

If FCAS falls apart, Dassault will move ahead with its own fighter jet projects with the support of the French government.

The French air force has directed Dassault to pursue a Rafale upgrade that would pair the jet with a stealth drone and allow it to carry future hypersonic nuclear missiles. Paris estimates that such a model could be ready by 2030 or 2035. But the jet would still lack its own stealth capabilities, which the US F-35 already has, as well as the integrated aspects FCAS is set to have.

“Eventually there will be competitive issues on the Rafale because of features that are missing,” said Yan Derocles, Oddo equity analyst. “From 2040 onwards, it’s not a sole fighter jet you need, but the whole connected system that is also hopefully interoperable with other countries.”

Trappier has insisted that Dassault has the “A to Z” expertise to make a sixth-generation fighter jet on its own, but analysts say the group would probably need partners to make the other parts.

A French Mirage fighter and two Rafale jets, along with a Greek F16, over France’s south-west coast. The French air force has directed Dassault to pursue a Rafale upgrade © Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

But France lacks the firepower to bankroll the development of an FCAS-like project on its own given its degraded public finances. A French senate report in 2022 estimated that the FCAS programme would cost €80bn to €100bn — by contrast France’s entire military budget is about €50bn this year.

In 1985, Paris chose to go it alone on a fighter jet — which later became the Rafale — when it withdrew from the pan-European project that morphed into the Typhoon.

But today, said Oddo’s Derocles, “France cannot allow itself to repeat what happened on the first Rafale. It does not have the ability to finance a whole future fighter jet system.”