Transcription
Imagine for a moment, you are in an office somewhere in the heart of Saint-Cloup, in the historic premises of Dassault Aviation. On the walls, black and white photos of the Mirage 3, the Mirage 2000, and of course, the Rafale. Decades of French genius summarized in a few snapshots. And there, resting on a table, a pile of documents stamped "Confidential Defense." These are the plans for the SCAF, the Future Combat Air System, and what I am about to tell you today might be one of the most crucial industrial battles France has known since the creation of its deterrent force. So, make yourself comfortable, because this story deserves our time to be understood.
To grasp what is truly at stake with the SCAF, we must first go back. We must return to the time when one man, a single man, laid the foundations of what is today the pride of our defense industry. I am, of course, speaking of General de Gaulle. When de Gaulle decided in the 1960s that France must possess its own nuclear strike force and its own combat aircraft, many scoffed. The Americans found it pretentious. The British shrugged. But de Gaulle knew something that very few leaders in the world understood at that time: sovereignty, true sovereignty, the kind that matters when things get serious, is built in factories, in laboratories, in design offices, not in diplomatic salons. And it is from this vision that an absolutely extraordinary lineage of combat aircraft was born. First, the Mirage 3, which stunned the entire world during the Six-Day War, then the Mirage 2000, a true technological jewel of its era. And finally, the Rafale, this aircraft that is so talked about today.
But ask yourself this question: how many countries in the world will be capable in 2026 of entirely designing a latest-generation combat aircraft from A to Z? The engine, the radar, the avionics, the weapon systems, and most importantly, the flight controls. The answer can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The United States, Russia, China, and France. That's it. And in Europe, we are the only ones. The only ones.
And here, I want to pause for a moment on this term that many hear without truly understanding its scope. Flight controls. When we say flight controls, we might imagine a simple software, a few lines of code in an onboard computer. Well, no, it's infinitely more than that. Flight controls are the soul of the aircraft. It is this incredibly complex system that bridges the pilot's thought and the machine's reaction. Every microsecond, thousands of calculations are performed to maintain an intrinsically unstable aircraft in controlled flight. It is pure alchemy. It is the result of decades of research, flight testing, sometimes crashes, and infinite correction. Entire generations of Dassault engineers have dedicated their careers to perfecting these systems. And when I say it is the heart of the Rafale, I choose my words carefully. Without these flight controls, the Rafale is just an empty shell. With them, it becomes one of the most formidable aircraft on the planet. And this is precisely what is at stake in the SCAF affair.
So, let's pick up the story from the beginning. In 2017, France and Germany decided to launch an ambitious program together: the SCAF. The idea is beautiful on paper: to design the combat air system that will eventually replace the French Rafale and the German Eurofighter. The project is not limited to a simple aircraft; it includes a new-generation fighter, the NGF, but also a network of autonomous drones, a cloud command system. In short, a complete ecosystem. And the division of labor at the origin was crystal clear. We applied the principle of "best athlete," as the President of the Republic himself so aptly put it. Whoever excels in a field takes the lead. Dassault, with its unique expertise in Europe in combat aircraft design, took the lead on the NGF, the aircraft itself. Airbus, for its part, stepped up to lead the drone pillar and the famous combat cloud system. It was logical, it was coherent; everyone did what they did best. But then...
And here, I will ask you to hold your breath for a moment, because this is where everything changed. In 2010, Spain was integrated into the project, and Berlin. Berlin seized this opportunity with remarkable skill. Overnight, Germany was no longer content with its role in drones and cloud. It demanded an strictly equal distribution among the three nations: 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. Everyone intervenes on everything, including the design of the combat aircraft, including the flight controls. Do you understand what that means? What Germany was asking for through this seemingly bureaucratic reorganization was nothing less than access to the most sensitive technological secrets of the French aeronautical industry. Secrets accumulated over more than 60 years. This thirst to access the most advanced technologies of the flight control system was an attempt to bridge decades of research and development with a stroke of a pen. And all this in the name of European cooperation.
So, of course, presented like that in the corridors of Brussels, it sounds good. Europe moving forward together, common defense, shared values. But in reality, what was at stake was a fundamental challenge to the "best athlete" principle. We were moving from a logic of competence to a logic of political sharing. And Éric Trappier, the CEO of Dassault Aviation, understood this immediately. And he said no.
And here, allow me to tell you about this man, because he is at the heart of this story. Éric Trappier is someone who doesn't mince words. When he appears on television, he is almost disconcertingly frank. During a recent appearance, he summarized his position with absolute clarity. He recalled that the initial contract was clear: Dassault is the leader of the combat aircraft. Period. It's not a matter of ego, it's not a matter of misplaced national pride. It's a matter of competence. It's a matter of responsibility. As he himself said, "If I am asked to be responsible for this aircraft, then my teams must have the means to carry out that responsibility, otherwise, don't ask me for anything."
And he recalled a fact that many conveniently forget: the Eurodrone. This European drone program is led by Airbus. And no one objected; Airbus did not complain about being the leader of the Eurodrone. But curiously, when it comes to the combat aircraft, the "meat," as insiders say, suddenly Airbus wants to share everything, co-lead everything. The contradiction is so blatant that it becomes almost comical. And he added something remarkable. He said, "If there is no Dassault leadership on the SCAF, then there will be no SCAF." And he stood by it. "I prefer nothing," he declared. "Nothing rather than a bad aircraft designed by political compromise."
And Trappier recalled an important fact. At the end of 2015, he himself went to Berlin. He made overtures, concrete proposals. The defense ministers of both countries were witnesses. So it is not Dassault that is showing rigidity. It is the demands of Airbus Germany that, by seeking to backtrack on the terms of the initial contract, have created the current impasse. And here, and this is important to emphasize, what the German subsidiary of Airbus actually wants is to transform the SCAF into an Eurofighter-type program. A collegial organization where everyone interferes everywhere, where no one is truly responsible, and where the final result is a technical compromise. However, Trappier stated with surgical clarity: moving from the Rafale to an Eurofighter model would be a considerable step backward.
Faced with this industrial firmness, the political response came from Emmanuel Macron. The President deeply believes in the SCAF project. He sees it as a pillar of this much-vaunted "Europe of Defense" that he has been calling for since the beginning of his mandates. During a dinner with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, he announced the launch of a mission to bring Airbus and Dassault closer together. He described the fact that the divergences between the two industrialists were not being overcome as incomprehensible. And this is where the entire dissonance lies. On one side, a president who believes in European defense cooperation. On the other, an industrialist who experiences the daily reality of what it means to design a combat aircraft. And between the two, a chasm that seems to widen with each passing day.
But let's go even further, because beyond the industrial rivalry, there is an even more fundamental problem that is too rarely discussed. France and Germany simply do not need the same aircraft, and that is not an opinion. It is physics, it is pure geostrategy. France needs an aircraft capable of carrying nuclear deterrence. Germany does not possess nuclear weapons. And for historical reasons that everyone knows, reasons dating back to 1945, it is unlikely that it will have them anytime soon. France needs an aircraft capable of operating from an aircraft carrier. Germany does not have an aircraft carrier. These constraints are non-negotiable. An aircraft catapulted from the deck of an aircraft carrier has nothing to do with an aircraft taking off from a 3-kilometer hard runway. The structure, the landing gear, resistance to mechanical stresses, the attachment systems – everything is different.
Olaf Scholz himself posed the question with a lucidity that must be acknowledged: "Do we have the strength and the will to build two aircraft for these two different sets of requirements, or only one?" And the answer, of course, everyone knows it, but no one dares to state it clearly: No, we will not build two aircraft, and no, a single aircraft cannot meet such radically different needs. This is the fundamental paradox of the SCAF. A paradox that all the political goodwill in the world will not be able to resolve.
And if you think I am exaggerating, let me tell you the story of the Eurofighter, because that is where the lesson becomes truly bitter. The Eurofighter Typhoon was exactly the same promise. Four European countries – the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Spain – uniting to build a common combat aircraft. The result? A decent aircraft, certainly, but one that never reached the excellence of the Rafale, precisely because it was designed by compromise. And the most ironic thing in all of this is that out of the four countries that designed the Eurofighter, three ended up buying the American F-35. Three out of four. Think about that for a moment. These nations invested billions in a common European program only to end up knocking on Lockheed Martin's door. This is the most striking demonstration of what European defense cooperation yields when it is guided by political compromise rather than technical excellence. Take the time to digest that. Three out of four, billions of euros sunk into a program meant to embody European sovereignty, and in the end, they go buy American.
And here I ask the uncomfortable question: Why? Why wasn't the Eurofighter enough? Because an aircraft designed by compromise between four general staffs with different doctrines and divergent operational needs inevitably ends up being an aircraft that fully satisfies no one. A bit too heavy for some, not versatile enough for others, too expensive to maintain for a third. We end up with an average aircraft in a world where air superiority is not achieved with average, but with excellence. And this is exactly what Éric Trappier wants to avoid. He said it with words that resonate like a manifesto: "What is the truly effective combat aircraft that has been produced through European cooperation? There isn't one. The only European combat aircraft that rivals the best in the world is the Rafale. And it is a French aircraft, designed by French people, with French expertise."
So now, let's take a step back and ask ourselves the real question. The one that goes beyond the SCAF, the one that touches the very essence of what Europe is in terms of defense. Can the Europe of Defense, this magnificent dream that so many political leaders have carried for decades, truly exist? And here, I will be very direct with you. The notion of common European defense clashes with an obstacle that no amount of diplomatic dinners in the world can overcome: European nations do not have the same strategic interests. France is a nuclear power, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, with projection forces on all continents and a navy including a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Germany is an economic power that for decades has underinvested in its defense and is now rediscovering the need to rearm. Spain has Mediterranean priorities. Italy looks towards North Africa. Each has its own threats, its own alliances, its own ambitions.
How can we build a common weapons system when we don't have a common strategic vision? How can we design the same aircraft when we don't want to conduct the same missions? The answer is in the history of the SCAF. We can't. And those who claim otherwise cling to a utopia that the reality of international relations corrects with every new crisis. This does not mean, mind you, that cooperation is impossible. It is even desirable in certain well-defined areas: drones, cyber defense, intelligence, logistics. There are a thousand fields where Europeans can and must work together. But when it comes to the core of military sovereignty, when it comes to the aircraft that will carry your nuclear deterrence, when it comes to the aircraft that will take off from your aircraft carrier's deck to defend your vital interests, there is no room for compromise. Then it's every man for himself, and that's normal, it's even healthy.
So, what should be done? Trappier has shown the way with disarming simplicity. If the SCAF in its current form cannot work, then France must do what it has always known how to do best: rely on itself, design the successor to the Rafale internally, a 6th-generation Rafale, if you will, an aircraft designed for our needs, optimized for our missions, compatible with our aircraft carrier, capable of carrying our deterrence. And let's not forget that France would not be alone in this adventure, industrially speaking. Safran, the engine manufacturer, is already positioned as a leader for the future fighter's engine. They are the most competent in this field, and no one disputes it. There is a complete French industrial ecosystem, from Dassault for the airframe to the flight controls, including Safran for propulsion and Thales for onboard electronics, that is perfectly capable of meeting this challenge. We did it with the Mirage, we did it with the Rafale, we can do it again. An aircraft that perpetuates this extraordinary lineage, from the Mirage to the Rafale. An aircraft that continues this beautiful story, as Trappier himself said, with palpable emotion in his voice, that of someone who probably leads one of the last great industrial families in the world to invest in its defense aviation.
And perhaps that is the real lesson of this whole affair. Sovereignty is not an empty word brandished in speeches. It is a concrete choice. It is the choice to maintain skills, to protect know-how, to refuse to sell off what has been built at the cost of decades of effort. And sometimes, this choice implies knowing how to say no, even to one's partners. Even when political pressure is immense, even when the President of the Republic himself pushes you to accept, Éric Trappier knew how to say "No." And whatever happens to the SCAF in the coming months and years, this stance will remain a rare act of industrial courage in an era where everything pushes towards soft consensus and the dilution of responsibilities. Because, ultimately, the question is not whether France can afford to go it alone. The question is: can it afford not to?
When you are one of the few countries in the world capable of designing an aircraft that takes off from an aircraft carrier, that performs reconnaissance, that strikes on the ground, that ensures air superiority, AND that carries nuclear weapons, you do not dilute that capability in a 3-nation compromise. You protect it, you cultivate it, you pass it on to future generations. And it is with this thought that I leave you today. The SCAF is not just a story of aircraft and industrial contracts. It is a mirror reflecting a fundamental question: What price are we willing to pay to remain masters of our destiny? The answer to this question belongs to every citizen, every voter, every taxpayer, but above all, it belongs to those who, like Éric Trappier and the thousands of Dassault engineers, get up every morning to perpetuate a heritage that the whole world envies us. And that, that is priceless. Yeah.