By Pierre Tran
Le Bourget, France – A long-simmering dispute between Airbus and Dassault Aviation on the share of high-value work on a planned European fighter jet boiled over at the 2025 Paris air show, which opened June 16 with a summer heatwave warming the tarmac.
The June 21 U.S. strike with bunker busting bombs of three nuclear related targets in Iran underscored the significance of the military aircraft and weapons displayed at the 55th edition of the air show, held in the northern suburbs of the capital.
An aerobatic display of a Dassault Rafale fighter jet in the red, white, and blue of the French flag opened the show, reflecting national pride in the aerospace sector. The show organizer, Gifas, told a June 5 press conference the U.S. was the second-largest national exhibitor after France at the showcase for aeronautics and space technology.
Beneath the glitter of the show, which closed June 22, industry executives bore in mind the loss of more than 240 lives in the June 12 crash of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner flown by Air India. In the military world, there was Israel’s extended air and missile attack on Iran, pointing up Israeli dominance of the Iranian skies, while Teheran fired ballistic missiles in retaliation.
In other theaters of conflict, India has yet to give a detailed account in response to Pakistan’s claim of downing the Rafale in combat, while Dassault has said what counted was accomplishing the mission, not the aircraft.
Corporate Clash
Dassault executive chairman Eric Trappier told June 17 Bloomberg TV that Airbus posed governance problems on the European fighter project.
Airbus Defence and Space, based in Germany, is the industrial partner of Dassault, the French prime contractor, on the new generation fighter (NGF) at the heart of the ambitious European future combat air system (FCAS).
“We may go it alone,” Trappier said at the show, with the mercury rising on troubled corporate ties.
If there was good cooperation, then it made sense to stay in the partnership on the fighter, he said, but added that he was “not happy with the governing system.”
The governance rules on FCAS meant Dassault sat at the table negotiating with the German and Spanish Airbus units, with the latter two entitled to two thirds of the work share, he said. The work share reflected the three nations backing the project rather than the companies’ technological skills.
France, Germany, and Spain were financing the project, with Belgium keen to enter the deal.
It could be argued that rising costs and the call for shareholders’ return have made it harder for manufacturers to go it alone. That raises the need for government funding, making it a political decision rather than purely corporate on whether to pull out.
A senior Airbus executive, Jean-Brice Dumont, told reporters June 17 Dassault was clearly the prime, adding there was also a claim for a work for based on the equal share of the three nations backing FCAS.
“What we don’t challenge is that there is an appointed leader for the fighter program,” he said. “That leader is named Dassault Aviation.
Dumont, head of air power at Airbus Defence and Space, spoke calmly, perhaps attempting to pour oil over troubled waters.
“Dassault has the lead of the so-called pillar one – NGWS (new generation weapon system).
There has to be an even share corresponding to the share of our governments. That doesn’t have to become toxic in the programme,” he said.
“We have to aim for something that is simple enough. Cooperation meant there would be interdependency, which had to be ‘healthy,’” he said, pointing up the need for government support to advance the FCAS project.
Airbus was not planning to move to the global combat air programme (GCAP) and leave FCAS, he said.
Airbus DS is a unit of Airbus, an airliner builder based in Toulouse, southern France.
Dumont previously worked in the Direction Générale de l’Armement procurement office on the Franco-German Tiger attack helicopter before moving on to work on the NH90 military transport helicopter at Eurocopter, renamed Airbus Helicopters.
Strategic Solidarity
Jean-Pierre Maulny, deputy director of the Institut des Relations Internationales et Stratégiques, a think tank, told June 11 the Anglo-American Press Association that European allies needed to share technology, to pursue a “strategic solidarity. This was in preference to the “best athlete” approach.
The DGA backed the latter, which secured a leading position for Dassault in building fighters. France has the “competence,” while Germany has the money, he said.
“It’s very difficult,” he said.
France is in financial dire straits, with a 2024 public sector budget deficit of 5.8 pct, up from 5.4 pct in the previous year, national statistics agency INSEE has said. That calls for big government spending cuts to meet a European Union target of 3 pct by 2029.
Meanwhile, there was a perceived need for European allies to replace key U.S. capabilities – known as “enablers — as Washington was seen as withdrawing from the European theatre.
Europe has a problem with “enablers,” he said, referring to the lack of European built satellites, deep-strike weapons, defense against air and missile attacks, spy planes, intelligence gathering, air-to-air refueling, and strategic air transport.
The 27 E.U. member states, and the U.K. and Norway had much to do, and should act collectively, he said. European allies had five to 10 years to build up the defence industrial and technology base in Europe.
Dassault has a history of building its own aircraft and delivering the flight control technology, said Sash Tusa, analyst at Agency Partners, an equities research house.
If there is cooperation, there will be technology flying for 40-50 years, paid for by the partner governments, he said. Alternatively, Dassault has work in the pipeline for the F5 and eventual F6 of the Rafale and a planned unmanned combat air vehicle based on the Neuron demonstrator.
Meanwhile, Germany clearly has a nearer-term priority to fund, and bring into service, the F-35, he said.
An industry source said Dassault was working on F5, and there was nothing planned for an F6 version.
FCAS appears to be lagging further behind the global combat air program, which seems to be on its third design iteration, Tusa said.
Italy, Japan, and the U.K. are the three nations backing GCAP, based on the Tempest, a British-led fighter project. The aim is to fly that new generation fighter in 2035.
Saudi Arabia is keen to join that fighter project, and Italy backs Riyadh’s entry to that consortium, Reuters reported Jan. 27.
Dassault tucked its life-size model of the new generation fighter on the side of its outdoor stand, while its Neuron prototype for an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) and a Rafale, complete with a spread of weapons, took pride of place in the front.
That layout was seen by some as relegating the new fighter to second place, while pointing up the perceived importance of the Rafale and its accompanying collaborative combat aircraft (CCA), or combat drone.
No Surprise
Trappier’s remarks to Bloomberg did not surprise one French executive, who said those sentiments had appeared in the French press, and perhaps the high media impact stemmed from being expressed in English.
The Dassault executive told June 16 Le Figaro, a daily, the French company’s minority position on the fighter made it “particularly complicated to exercise leadership. If the states want us to go ahead, governance needs to be changed.”
The Dassault family owns Le Figaro.
The aim was to build and fly a plane by 2029/30, he said. “To do that, a leader is needed, not endless discussion on the work share for the nations. This geographic return is not efficient.
That was fine when the work was all on paper, but when it came to ‘cutting steel,’ things had to change,” he said.
The Dassault top executive made it clear April 9 to the defense committee of the lower house National Assembly, when he told parliamentarians “the task is extremely difficult,” but the company had no intention of pulling out.
There was permanent negotiation, he said, with a long and complex path.
“I am not sure this is the model of efficiency, but we will meet the wishes of the states,” he said.
There were delays due to the geographic return approach, he said, when the priority should be on the level of expertise to develop an ambitious industrial product. That product should be competitive, not only with the enemy but also what the allies were building.
Dassault could not build everything, but the company did work with Thales, the electronics company, he said.
The family-controlled plane maker holds 26.6 pct of Thales.
The fighter project lay in finding the best compromise between stealth and maneuverability, while meeting requirements of the chiefs of staff, he told parliamentarians. Tests should be launched as soon as possible, and he favored speeding up the project by a revised share of “responsibilities.”
“It is up to the states to discuss, to define the best way to manage this ambitious program,” he said.
“I do not want to appear arrogant,” he said in answer to whether Dassault could build the FCAS on its own. “I am ready to cooperate and share, but Dassault and its partners Thales and Safran have the capability to build a fighter jet on a national basis.
“The president strongly wishes to see cooperation on FCAS,” he said, as the three partner nations allowed increased funding and the fighter would signify a more united Europe.
“The state is committed, but the situation is more complex when one plunges into the reality of contracts,” he said. “I say again – with three, the situation is necessarily more complex, and should evolve.”
President Emmanuel Macron and the then German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, announced in 2017 the determination to launch the FCAS project, soon after a U.K. referendum delivered a vote, with narrow margin, to leave the E.U.
The FCAS budget for the present phase 1B and upcoming phase 2 was worth almost €8 billion ($9.2 billion), the armed forces ministry has said. Phase 1B was worth €3.2 billion, ran 2023-2025, and allowed air force officers to select the aircraft architecture this year.
Phase 2 calls on the partner companies to build and fly a fighter technology demonstrator and two classes of remote carriers, or drones, in 2028/29. That appears to have slipped to 2029/30.
Belgium, an observer on FCAS, is keen to join as a partner nation when phase 2 is launched, opening up the prospect for work for Belgian aerospace companies.
The FCAS budget shared between the three partner nations has been estimated at some €80 billion, and that appears to have been rounded up to €100 billion.
The new fighter would replace the Eurofighter Typhoon for Germany and Spain, and the Rafale for France. The FCAS project includes a combat cloud for extended command and control, as well as the swarm of drones.
Featured image: The Paris Air Show 2025 as seen from the Dassault Pavilion. Credit: Dassault.