When his beginning was introduced on July 13, 2017, he was the affirmation of a Franco-German couple “effective and ambitious” wished by Emmanuel Macron, newly elected to the presidency of the Republic, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Less than 9 years later, he’s the image of the variations between the 2 nations on protection points.
If it’s not formally deserted, the Future Air Combat System (FCAS), whose funds is estimated at practically 100 billion euros, making it the biggest industrial cooperation venture ever launched in Europe, is in a state of mind loss of life.
Despite lengthy negotiations between States, two years of engineering and several other billion euros spent (1.2 billion euros of authorization of commitments have nonetheless been budgeted by France for 2026), Paris, Berlin, Madrid (Spain was added to the venture in 2019) in addition to the 2 major producers of this system, the French Dassault Aviation and the Franco-German-Spanish Airbus, nonetheless can’t agree on the way in which to fabricate the brand new era fight plane, the central physique of the SCAF, round which six different pillars revolve (engine, tactical cloud, sensors, fight drones, stealth and total coherence), additionally distributed between totally different producers from the three nations, together with the French Safran and Thales, the Spanish Indra and the German MTU.
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https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2026/02/19/l-avion-de-combat-franco-allemand-chronique-d-un-crash-annonce_6667341_3234.html