Paris is hopeful.

The Future Air Combat System (SCAF), a project led in particular by Paris and Berlin and which seems to have stagnated for a year, "will be done", assured Thursday in Germany the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu.

"Many things have been said or written in recent weeks, I believe that with one sentence, we will cut it short by saying that the SCAF is a priority project", assured the French minister in Berlin at a conference of joint press with his German counterpart, Christine Lambrecht.

This project, initiated in 2017 and supposed to enter service by 2040, is "awaited as much by Berlin as by Paris and this project will be done, we cannot be more direct", added Sébastien Lecornu.

No agreement between Dassault and Airbus

But the hatching of the program is done in pain: after months of bitter discussions on the sharing of tasks between the three countries, the governments signed at the end of August 2021 an agreement providing for 3.6 billion euros to finance studies. detailed, known as "phase 1B", with a view to launching the construction of an in-flight demonstrator in 2025, which would take off two years later.

And since then, nothing.

The contracts were not signed for lack of agreement between the French Dassault Aviation and its main partner Airbus, which represents the interests of Germany and Spain.

The SCAF now seems to be overtaken by a competing project led by Great Britain, the Tempest.

"Fighter aircraft of the future"

Despite these difficulties, "we need to think about what the fighter aviation of the future will be like, since we need it, and we must already think about regenerating our equipment in this area", recalled the French minister.

"It's obviously true for the SCAF, it's also true, of course, for the tank of the future", he continued, recalling, concerning France, that "the Leclerc tanks will arrive soon at the end of life ".

Tanks in anticipation

“So we have to think about a new model of equipment for our armies (…) and therefore sometimes, ministers need to have an agenda of perseverance”, estimated Sébastien Lecornu.

He said he had "agreed" with Christine Lambrecht "on future timetables for the tank" and specified that "proposals" for progress on the tank project would be made before the Franco-German Council of Ministers organized at the end of October.

Economy

Air traffic controllers' strike: Notice lifted at the end of September

World

'Ghost plane' with four people on board crashes at sea off Latvia

  • Economy

  • Aviation

  • Army

  • Plane

  • Germany