I am pretty certain the French can make the aircraft themselves. It would probably finish the design process and enter service faster too.
They have been dragging their feet with this project for way too long.
But Macron is no procurement genius either. Just look at his decision to retire the light helicopters in French service without a replacement being in service.
France could but at extreme cost. Fifth generation fighters are expensive with a high cost of industrial base. Sixth generation are likely to fall in the same.
As the decades and generations have progressed more and more European countries have joint ventured their fighter programs like Jaguar, Tornadoes and Typhoons. This means more units built as multiple countries make buys. A single European buyer would be trapped in the same situation as Russian fighter buys. At max a hundred or so the bleeding money as production cost of a low volume drive costs higher and higher, particularly as European countries tend to smaller economies and investment in defense. France tries to buck this by heavily exporting but with the limitations of one nation the assurance of buys is harder. The Rafale for example sold 180 at home with another 280 or so in export orders pending or delivered. 460 That’s pretty good. But compared to Typhoon at 681 units ordered delivered or slated though can see how it’s on a better foot. The Guaranteed buys put Typhoon on a better starting ground.
FCAS has a major weakness that being that France is the only European state that has CATBAR carriers. As such France being a nation with a limited Naval size has to build its new fighters as Carrier fighters first. The rest of Europe has different needs for its fighters as though other nations in Europe have carriers they are S/VTOL types. The only other Navy with CATBAR carriers is the USN, whom by numbers and resources dwarf the French.
France doesn’t want to depend on US export save for highly specialized products like AWACS. France has a suspicious view of the United States as a source of protection. They left NATO for a long time because DeGaulle became convinced that the US wouldn’t actually take European security to heart if they got into a potential Nuclear standoff. Just about every French government since has modeled its self in DeGaulle’s image of Europeanisum. Though eventually France returned to the NATO fold they have made no bones about wanting to Europeanize it. (Ironically What the US would actually love, a Europe able to defend itself!) The EU by nature of the beast made Paris and Berlin the true twin captains of the Europe. The two states as such have been on a mission in the last decade to shift European defense programming and industrial production to the continent and particularly though their own MIC. However The unique wants of France come in vs the rest of the potential buyers and the odd man out. The UK whom prebrexit were the third major party of the EU and one of the largest MIC and military of Western Europe.
This Makes FCAS highly sensitive for France as it’s not just the two kingpins of the EU, but potentially the centerpiece of France’s MIC at stake. If FCAS becomes Rafale 2.0 with a purely indigenous build to match its special needs then France has to make a massive investment that weakens the rest of its MIC and forces a higher spending on that than other potential assets like Submarines, surface warfare, Carriers, tanks and the like.
However Germany has different needs for its defense than France. If it was just a question of replacing conventional ground strike that would be firmly covered by Typhoon. Nuclear sharing makes this complicated. France doesn’t need nor have a Nuclear sharing agreement they build their own Bombs. Germany does. The B61 warhead requires a PALS interface and hardware to interface. Currently Eurofighter isn’t equipped for that. To do so requires the US to integrate it into the Typhoon which doesn’t seem likely. One of the concerns is that the Typhoon probably wouldn’t last very long in the event of a European nuclear strike mission vs a conventional adversary. Which makes the whole idea of a B61 certificate on Typhoon mute. Typhoon though a very modern fighter is not exactly a small RCS it’s fine for defense and European internal service but vs IADS in a penetration mission it’s not suited. So though the work could be done it would be pointless. F35A is already being configured for B61 missions and has survival vs IADS baked in. German bases in the future will already be playing host to F35A, It would be a logical buy particularly with current events. With Germany now officially taking a harder tone and vowing to increase its defense spending it will be interesting to see if things change.
