Since the last virtual meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and his German counterpart Angela Merkel last week on defense cooperation programs between France and Germany, a wind of panic seems to be blowing in France, both on the side of the industrial than on the political side. The German Chancellor has indeed, on the occasion of this meeting, indicated thatit intended to renegotiate once again the industrial distribution around the Air Combat System of the Future FCAS program which brings together France, Germany and Spain. More precisely, it now wants the German industry to also develop one of the prototypes of the NGF (Next Generation Fighter) program, a task that had hitherto been assigned to Dassault Aviation.
Of course, this declaration created a stir on the French side, especially since it comes at a time when the financing of the program is now suspended with the agreement of the German parliament, the Bundestag, in a very tight timetable, and with the threat of a change of majority in Germany during the legislative elections this fall. To add to the already great pressure, at the end of last week, Airbus Defense & Space employees, the company on which Berlin relies to pilot the FCAS program in the country and which is already developing the Eurofighter Typhoon, published an appeal along the same lines as the Chancellor, in order to “preserve strategic know-how for the company”.
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