By Pierre Tran
Paris – There have been few national orders for French military aircraft and space systems since the start of the year, following a drop of a third in domestic defense aerospace orders last year from 2023, Guillaume Faury, chair of Groupement des Industries Françaises Aéronautiques et Spatiales (GIFAS), a trade association, said May 6.
The sale overseas of Airbus airliners and Rafale fighter jets underpin the sales and order books of the French aerospace industry, represented by GIFAS.
Asked about military orders, Faury said there had been a big gain in exports last year, with a rise of 77 pct, but there had been a 33 pct drop for domestic defense orders from 2023. He was speaking at a breakfast news conference on 2024 results for the trade body.
“There have been very few orders since the beginning of 2025 for our (aeronautics and space) sector,” he said, leaving aside orders for equipment for the French army and navy.
“A subject of attention and a cause for concern,” he said.
The Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) procurement office said in response to those remarks, “It should be noted that orders placed are in line with the terms set out in the military budget law 2024-2030, and the difference in the volume of orders from one year to the next does not mean a weakening of effort for defense over the time period.”
In combat missions, there were media reports May 7 of Pakistan’s claim of downing five fighters flown by the Indian air force, including Rafale, MiG, and Sukhoi jets. Those French headlines – and a BBC Radio 4 interview with a Pakistani diplomat – pointing up the loss of the Rafale could be seen as the perceived importance of the French-built fighters in the deadly territorial dispute over the Kashmir region.
On the home front, French Prime Minister François Bayroux is under pressure to cut the public sector deficit to 5.4 pct this year from 5.8 pct, to bring it down to 3 pct of gross domestic product by 2029.
His efforts to slash spending are opposed by opposition political parties, which forced out his predecessor who also sought to reduce state expenditure.
Weak domestic growth and U.S. tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump weigh on Bayroux’s efforts to rescue a public purse weighed by debt, while seeking to win support from the public and the far-right and far-left parties in a deeply divided parliament.
Bercy, the finance ministry, is seen as clamping down on arms orders, financial website La Tribune reported May 7, with industry talk of “economies” rather than the “war economy.”
GIFAS Recovers
Meanwhile, the French aerospace sector beat in 2024 the level of sales last seen before the Covid crisis, which slashed airline travel, and made it hard for suppliers and subcontractors to secure raw materials, components, and working capital.
The total 2024 orders for aeronautics and space were worth €74.8 billion ($84.4 billion), up 5 pct from the previous year, the association said.
Foreign sales delivered growth for the aerospace industry, for the civil and military sectors.
“Exports are indispensable today,” the association said, as foreign deals made up 82 pct of overall 2024 sales, worth €77.7 billion, up 10 percent.
Reliance on foreign sales left the sector open to uncertainty from geopolitics, and trade conflict over tariffs and technology transfer, GIFAS said. That 2024 recovery was “fragile” on a constant currency basis, with inflation of close to 18 pct over the last five years.
The association called on the French government to place orders to help support the aerospace sector.
“GIFAS calls for a boost from government orders, particularly for space and defense, to support a resilient business model capable of absorbing external shocks,” the trade body said.
The European space sector is under pressure to consolidate, with Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales seeking approval from the European Commission for a prospective merger, in response to U.S. companies such as SpaceX and its Starlink satellite system.
Faury is also chief executive of Airbus, builder of airliners, military aircraft and satellites, based in Toulouse, southwest France.
French Budget
Asked about the French military budget in the light of British and German plans to boost spending, Faury told the news conference the military budget law was welcome, but much depended on plans for future capabilities, with Nato due to unveil a project this summer.
Berlin and London have pledged to increase military spending beyond the two percent of gross domestic product in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“It is very important to define the targets,” he said. “We have the defense system as it is today. There is a military budget law which is a significant increase.
“Execution of this budget law will bring France to a higher level of capability, unseen for decades,” he said. “But there is a further level of spending which should be defined by military objectives.”
There would be a “time horizon” for specific capabilities, which would need to be built, delivered, operated, and maintained overseas over the long term, he said.
“That calls for an architecture of security and defense different from the one today, and in particular for European partners and Nato,” he said. Nato is due to unveil a plan in the middle of the year, which will inform member states what they will need to do and the budgets they will need to bridge the gap.
Nato is pitching Force Model as a deployment of a larger, faster, and more capable military, the alliance says on its website. That force model will replace the NATO Response Force.
The force model will more than triple the number of high-readiness forces, increasing its ability to respond to crisis or conflict at greater scale and at higher readiness, the alliance said. There will be a “three-tiered readiness system,” with Tier 1 comprising forces of 0-10 days of readiness; tier 2 forces 10-30 days of readiness; and tier 3 forces at 30-180 days of readiness.
The Nato summit is due to meet June 24-25 at The Hague.
Rafale Hits Headlines
The Rafale fighter has been much in the news lately.
France and India signed April 28 an agreement which allowed Dassault Aviation to sign a contract for New Delhi’s order for 26 Rafale in the naval version, the company said.
“The Inter-Governmental Agreement between India and France has been signed today allowing the signature, in the presence of the Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation, Éric Trappier, of the contract for
India’s acquisition of 26 Rafale Marine to equip the Indian Navy,” the company said in an April 28 statement. The deal with India was the first export order for the naval version.
That Indian procurement of the naval Rafale was worth 630 billion rupees ($7.4 billion), Reuters reported.
The Indian navy is reported to be seeking to order a further 50 or so Rafale for its fleet of two aircraft carriers, the Vikrant and Vikramaditya. The latter is a refurbished Russian vessel.
“This new acquisition testifies to the importance of the strategic relationship between India and France and the recognition of the Rafale as an essential vector of national sovereignty,” the company said.
That strategic relationship between New Delhi and Paris could be seen in the French statement in support of the Indian strikes against Pakistan.
“France condemned the Pahalgam terrorist attack on 22 April and expressed its wholehearted solidarity with India. France supports India in its fight against terrorist groups,” the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs said in a May 7 statement.
“France is deeply concerned about the latest developments between India and Pakistan. It calls for de-escalation and for civilians to be protected.”
The Rafale for the Indian navy will replace an aging fleet of MiG-29 fighters, and follows New Delhi’s 2016 order for 36 Rafale for the air force. That deal for the air force was worth some €7.89 billion, of which €3.42 billion was for cost of the aircraft, and €1.7 billion for changes specific to the Indian air force.
Rafale and Disinformation
A wide media coverage of Pakistan downing the Rafale follows India’s May 7 missile strike against targets in Pakistan and the part of Kashmir under Pakistani control.
“New Delhi has begun to acknowledge the loss of several fighter jets in the Sindoor operation,” daily Le Monde reported. “At least one Rafale could have been among the aircraft destroyed.
“It would be the first time that one of these Dassault aircraft would have been lost in a combat situation.”
A Pakistan military spokesman, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said the Pakistan forces downed five fighters, namely three Rafale, a MiG 29 and a Sukhoi, and a combat drone, financial daily Les Echos reported. It was not possible to verify this information, the media report said,
which went out on social platforms with pictures of crashed aircraft claimed to be the Rafale.
Pictures of aircraft claimed to be downed Rafale on social platforms were fake, in what was a “real information war,” Radio France Internationale, a radio station, reported.
“In the continuous flow of disinformation which currently circulates on social networks in India and Pakistan, one word often crops up: Rafale,” the RFI report said May 6.
The RFI report on its website showed pictures from a video of the Rafale and a blazing crash site, claimed to be where the downed French-built fighter came down.
The pictures can be traced back to a video appearing on the internet from June 2024, RFI reported, and relate to the crash of an Indian air force Sukhoi 30, which crashed into a farm in the Nashik district, western India. The Indian pilot and co-pilot ejected safely, the report said.
Those supporting New Delhi showed that same video of a plane crash, claiming the Indian air force had shot down an F-16 flown by the Pakistani air force, RFI reported.
Featured image: ID 11409365 | French Defense © Derek Gordon | Dreamstime.com