Qatar Joins List of Countries Buying Fighter Jets From France
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Version 0 of 1. PARIS — President François Hollande of France announced on Thursday a multibillion dollar sale of military aircraft to Qatar, the country’s third such deal with a foreign government this year. The French government, in concert with French defense manufacturer Dassault, is on the verge of concluding contracts for up to 96 Rafale fighter jets. Of those, India will get 36, Egypt will get 24 and Qatar will get 24 and an option to buy 12 more. Officials said that Mr. Hollande would participate in a signing ceremony cementing the deal next week in Doha, the capital of Qatar. “This is the third commercial success we have had with the Rafale,” Mr. Hollande told reporters on Thursday during a visit with his defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to a naval engineering school in the western town of Brest. “It is above all a success for the companies, Dassault and its suppliers, that comes just when it’s most needed,” he said. The sale comes at a crucial time for Mr. Hollande and for France, where the aircraft sales will help to keep Dassault workers busy and safe from layoffs at a time when Mr. Hollande is under intense pressure to rally the lagging economy and create jobs. Dassault outbid Boeing, among other firms, for the contract. In addition, the sale of fighter jets to foreign governments will reduce the number of planes that the French would have to buy to keep the company in business, analysts said. That helps Mr. Hollande rein in the French military budget without hurting French jobs. “The assembly line does 11 aircraft per year,” said François Heisbourg, an adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research here. “All the planes used to go to the French Air Force, now they will be able to reduce the number the French Air Force will have to take. This was a moment when if we wanted to keep the assembly line hot, we had to keep ordering the aircraft and we were going to have a surfeit,” he said. The sale to Qatar of up to 36 French fighter jets would allow the small but wealthy Persian Gulf country to modernize its fleet as it bids for a larger strategic role in the region. Qatar has seen its strategic importance rise in recent years amid rising political tensions across the Middle East, with Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Syria immersed in armed conflict. Qatar is part of the coalition of Gulf countries led by Saudi Arabia that is now fighting in Yemen and Qatar has been a United States staging ground for military activity in the region. The emirate has also long maintained close political and economic ties with France, and its air force already operates an aging fleet of 12 Mirage-2000 jets, which were also built by Dassault. India and Egypt have also bought French jets this year, and Egypt’s latest purchase may also be part of its effort to diversify its supply lines amid tensions with the United States. Egypt receives more than a billion dollars annually in military aid from the United States that it is largely obligated to spend on American military hardware. But after President Obama suspended military aid to Egypt in 2013, when the military ousted Mohamed Morsi, the first democratically elected Egyptian leader, Egypt aggressively pursued defense suppliers elsewhere and France was the beneficiary. (President Obama lifted the freeze on arms to Egypt in March.) The sale, which is expected to be completed in the coming weeks is valued at about 6.3 billion euros or about $7 billion, a French Defense Ministry official said. The deal also includes weapons systems from the European missile maker MBDA. The Rafale fighter jet has been in service with the French military since 2004, but until this year, Dassault had failed to secure any export customers for the plane. The Rafale program has been heavily financed by the French government, which has received more than half of the 200 jets it has ordered. But in 2013, Mr. Hollande slashed his government’s commitment to the Rafale, capping France’s total projected fleet at 225 jets, down from 286, and slowing the pace of delivery from 11 to around five planes a year. Hoping to offset the commercial impact for Dassault, Paris has played an increasingly active role in the negotiations with potential export customers for the jets. Qatar has indicated that it could seek to grow its fleet to as many as 72 aircraft, and analysts said that the deal announced Thursday would leave Dassault in good position to win more business. Other Persian Gulf neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have opted for mixed fleets of American and European-built jets. |