France: Big Rafale procurement
Photo. Armée française - Opérations militaires/Twitter/X
France will increase the planned size of its fleet of Rafale multirole aircraft by several dozen planes, reports La Tribune. That will raise the capabilities of the French armed forces to a significantly higher level.
So far France has ordered 234 Rafales, some of which were lost in accidents. The introduction program for these aircraft was also delayed due to the transfer of 12 jets from French Air and Space Force stocks to Greece and 12 to Croatia. However, France placed orders to compensate for the transferred aircraft, and an emergency purchase of two aircraft to replace two lost in a collision in 2024 is planned for 2026.
According to the French White Paper of 2013 and the technical modernization plan for 2019–2025, the target number of Rafales was to be 225, of which 40 for the Navy and 185 for the Air and Space Forces.
At the beginning of this year the French defence minister announced a plan to increase that target level by 30 aircraft. Now the figure of 61 has appeared — for the Air Force, but also for the Navy. If confirmed, France would then possess 286 aircraft of this type. That would likely allow the complete withdrawal of the Mirage 2000 family from service (around 90 in service at the beginning of this year). They could, for example, be handed over to Ukraine.
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It is not known by which year the final Rafale fleet size would be achieved, but 225 aircraft by 2035 has previously been mentioned. It is possible that 286 aircraft would also need to be inducted by that time. This will be problematic because current annual Rafale production is about 24 aircraft, while domestic and export orders for the type still amount to roughly 150 aircraft not yet produced. In the coming days a decision in India’s MRCA 2.0 competition, which is to select a supplier of 114 aircraft, may be announced. The Rafale is favoured in that race.
An increase in annual Rafale production to 48 aircraft per year has been announced. Indian industry could be helpful in this process and join the aircraft’s supply chains.
If the order is confirmed, total orders for the Rafale will approach almost 600 units, making them only about 200 fewer than orders for the Eurofighter Typhoon.
