By Robbin Laird
Having been a long-term observer of Franco-German defense industrial cooperation, the thing I know for sure is that it is never static and is often subject to political maneuvering, industrial dialogue, distrusts and conflict.
The new stage of that co-operation continues in that tradition.
In the same week in October 2026, the French and German armies each made a claim to the same new class of weapon: conventional, land-based missiles reaching 1,500 to 2,500 kilometres. Neither claim came out of a bilateral program. Neither mentioned the other country. That is the point.
For most of the past decade, Franco-German armaments cooperation was judged by two flagship programs: the Future Combat Air System (FCAS/SCAF) and the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS). Both were supposed to show that Paris and Berlin could design the next generation of European combat power together. Long-range strike is now arriving as the next big capability area, and it shows a different pattern.
The two countries are converging on the same operational idea while building it through national channels, different industrial partners and different service arrangements.
Two Armies, One Week
In Paris, the budget opinion on Programme 178 (land forces) by deputy Anna Pic, reported by Zone Militaire’s Laurent Lagneau, says France’s future conventional land-based ballistic missile (missile balistique terrestre, MBT), aimed “prioritairement jusqu’à la classe 2 500 km”, is expected to go to the Armée de Terre. According to the opinion, an ArianeGroup risk-reduction study is to be notified in autumn 2026, with development launched in 2028 and initial capability targeted for 2030–31.
The service question was still open six months ago. The then army chief, General Pierre Schill, told deputies that the capability was “avant tout d’une logique interarmées” and that whether the army or the air force would operate it had not been settled (Zone Militaire). The air and space force chief, General Jérôme Bellanger, told the Senate in May that a 2,500 km surface-to-surface missile “ne permet guère de mobilité” and that his priority is an aeroballistic missile that can be fired from aircraft or ships, though no money is currently programmed for that (Zone Militaire). Pic’s opinion presents the MBT as one of France’s main “différenciantes” contributions as a framework nation, tied to the army-corps “comprendre – décider – agir” chain and the TITAN future land-combat model.
In Germany, the army’s inspector, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding, told the Defence TechDay at Erding on 22 October that the Heer must get better at indirect fire over “Entfernungen … die bisher für Landstreitkräfte fast nicht vorstellbar waren” (hartpunkt). The more specific claims come from the text of a speech he gave earlier in the month. In it he said the army will field low-cost cruise missiles, with two market-available systems of roughly 1,500 km range under consideration, first deliveries possible from 2027, and Typhon and Tomahawk “richtig verortet” with the Heer because the force should command and fire “aus einer Hand” (hartpunkt). Hartpunkt’s sources identify the two candidates as Covenant’s Anthem and a variant of the Ukrainian Bars, both potentially to be built in Germany (hartpunkt). At Erding, Freuding said the army wants to operate Tomahawk “also”, without excluding the Luftwaffe, and that a procurement decision on the low-cost missiles could come in 2027 (hartpunkt).
The Flagships Recede
These claims come as the old model of cooperation is coming apart. On 8 June, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced that the Franco-German-Spanish New Generation Fighter at the heart of FCAS had been terminated after nine years (Warsight). Work on the combat cloud continues (Aerotime). German defence officials are now recommending a new fighter partnership with Sweden and Spain rather than joining GCAP, although no political decision has been made (Politico Europe).
MGCS has followed a similar path more quietly. After the July Franco-German council at Brühl, the program was confirmed but the common tank was not. The two countries agreed to study collaborative combat in a research program up to a feasibility demonstration (Zone Militaire). In October, France’s chief of defence staff, General Fabien Mandon, told lawmakers that “the Germans have withdrawn from the project” (Politico Europe). Pistorius and Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin replied that MGCS “is not dead” and remains a core land-systems project (DW). Both statements can be true. A joint research and technology effort can survive while the joint platform does not, and France is moving ahead with an interim Leclerc successor (Zone Militaire).
Cooperation by Framework, Not by Program
Deep strike shows what is replacing the flagship model.
The European Long-range Strike Approach (ELSA), which brings together France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the UK, has moved from a requirements forum into standalone Implementation Groups led by individual nations (UK Defence Journal). It is a portfolio of efforts, not a single missile. Germany’s main partner for the 2,000 km-plus tier is Britain, through the Trinity House agreement, which aims at a family of stealth cruise and hypersonic weapons entering service in the 2030s (Army Recognition). President Macron said at Île Longue in March that Germany, the UK and France would work together on long-range missile projects within ELSA (Élysée). The Financial Times later reported that Paris wanted to join the UK–German effort and was offering ArianeGroup booster technology, as relayed by Caliber.
So the Franco-German link in deep strike now runs through a broader European framework, with Britain at its centre, rather than through a Paris–Berlin co-development deal. France is pursuing a sovereign ballistic missile with its own industrial champion. Germany is buying across several sources at once: market-available low-cost cruise missiles from an Israeli-US-German firm and a Ukrainian design, US Tomahawk and Typhon, and a long-term UK partnership. Berlin is reportedly looking at three Typhon batteries and around 400 Tomahawk Block Vb, with delivery not expected before the early 2030s (Ukrinform, citing hartpunkt).
Different Theories of the Same Weapon
The two armies are also justifying the capability differently, and that matters more than the range figures. The French case is tied to deterrence. Army chief General Jacques de Montgros argued that the more visible nuclear weapons become, the more France must be able to act below the threshold, because a credible deterrent requires credible conventional forces (Zone Militaire). The MBT is a high-end, sovereign, nationally distinctive asset meant to strengthen France’s role as a framework nation.
The German case is about the economics of war. Freuding argued that if an effector costs the enemy many times what it costs the Bundeswehr, that is an economic and therefore military advantage. He called for graduated effectors: cheap mass where mass must meet mass, high-end weapons where needed (hartpunkt). In his concept, low-cost cruise missiles saturate air defences so that Tomahawks can reach strategic targets (hartpunkt). That is a mass, salvo and kill-web argument shaped by Ukraine. The French argument is a deterrence argument shaped by the nuclear posture.
The Service Fight Is the Story Too
In both capitals, the most revealing argument is inside the national armed forces. Each army is claiming deep strike, which used to belong to air forces and navies, as a land-force function. In France, the air force chief prefers a mobile aeroballistic weapon that is not funded. In Germany, the ministry has not said whether it accepts the army’s case, and the future Bundeswehr structure is still awaiting approval (hartpunkt). A shared problem might seem to call for a shared Franco-German answer. In practice, each country first has to decide who in its own forces owns the weapon, who controls the targeting chain and whose budget pays for it.
Why It Matters
Franco-German armaments cooperation is not ending. It is changing form.
The model of grand co-developed platforms, with an agreed workshare and one common product, has failed twice.
What is emerging is cooperation by alignment: shared frameworks such as ELSA, shared technology strands such as the combat cloud and collaborative land combat, and national or minilateral programs underneath.
For deep strike, this may be workable, and perhaps quicker. Interoperability depends less on a common missile than on common targeting, ISR, command networks and launch infrastructure. A French ballistic missile and a German salvo of low-cost cruise missiles could complement each other within a NATO or European strike architecture. They would complicate an adversary’s defences in different ways, if the two countries can integrate the kill web that sits above the weapons.
The risk is that alignment without integration produces the fragmentation that the flagship programs were meant to prevent: small national inventories, duplicated industrial bases, separate sovereign supply chains and command arrangements that meet only at the top.
France is betting on sovereignty and quality. Germany is betting on speed, mass and buying wherever it can. The test for the coming decade is whether Europe can turn those two bets into one deterrent effect.
That will depend less on whether Paris and Berlin build a missile together than on whether they can fight their missiles together.