PARIS: France’s Dassault Aviation is looking to ramp up production of its Rafale combat planes, its CEO said on Sunday, after President Emmanuel Macron said the country would increase orders.
European countries including France have been seeking to boost defense spending and increase weapons production in the face of possible US security disengagement and Russian aggression linked to the war in Ukraine.
Macron said on Tuesday that France was going to “increase and accelerate Rafale orders.”
Dassault Aviation chief executive Eric Trappier said the company had increased output from one war plane a month in 2020 to more than two per month this year, and was working with suppliers to be able to produce combat planes even faster.
“We are planning to deliver three per month next year, and four from 2028-2029,” he told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper.
“We have heard the president’s call and are studying the possibility of ramping up to five Rafale per month. There are no concrete orders yet, but we want to be ready,” he said.
However, he did not say when this might be possible.
Trappier said that, if the French government approved, the company would also be “ready to provide its services” to any country reviewing its orders for US-made F-35 combat planes since President Donald Trump took office.
On Friday, Germany said it was committed to buying F-35 fighter jets despite reports that it was reconsidering due to worries about an over-reliance on US defense supplies.
But Canada said last week it was reviewing a major purchase of F-35s amid serious tensions over tariffs and Trump threatening to annex the country.
That announcement came two days after Portugal said it, too, was re-examining a possible purchase of F-35 fighter jets.
Trappier said that Portugal had not yet reached out to his company.
Last year, France’s air force had 108 Rafale jets, and the navy had 41. France was due to receive 56 additional aircraft before Macron’s announcement.
The defense minister last month said the air force needed 20 to 30 more Rafales to face a crisis scenario.
France’s Dassault says upping Rafale warplane output
https://arab.news/c2bvg
France’s Dassault says upping Rafale warplane output
- EU countries have been seeking to boost defense spending in the face of possible US security disengagement and Russian aggression
- Macron said that France was going to 'increase and accelerate Rafale orders'
Nigerian villagers are rattled by US airstrikes that made their homes shake and the sky glow red
- The strikes are the outcome of a months long tense diplomatic clash between the West African nation and the US
JABO: Sanusi Madabo, a 40-year-old farmer in the Nigerian village of Jabo, was preparing for bed on Thursday night when he heard a loud noise that sounded like a plane crashing. He rushed outside his mud house with his wife to see the sky glowing a bright red.
The light burned bright for hours, Madabo said: “It was almost like daytime.”
He did not learn until later that he had witnessed a USattack on an alleged camp of the militant Daesh group.
US President Donald Trump announced late Thursday that the United States had launched a “powerful and deadly strike” against Daesh militants in Nigeria. The Nigerian government has since confirmed that it cooperated with the US government in its strike.
A panicked village
Nigerian government spokesperson Mohammed Idris said Friday that the strikes were launched from the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean shortly after midnight and involved “16 GPS-guided precision” missiles and also MQ-9 Reaper drones.
Idris said the strikes targeted areas used as “staging grounds by foreign” Daesh fighters who had sneaked into Nigeria from the Sahel, the southern fringe of Africa’s vast Sahara Desert. The government did not release any casualty figures among the militants.
Residents of Jabo, a village in the northwestern Nigerian state of Sokoto, spoke to The Associated Press on Friday about panic and confusion among the villagers following the strikes, which they said hit not far from Jabo’s outskirts. There were no casualties among the villagers.
They said that Jabo has never been attacked as part of the violence the US says is widespread — though such attacks regularly occur in neighboring villages.
Abubakar Sani, who lives on the edge of the village, recalled the “intense heat” as the strikes hit.
“Our rooms began to shake, and then fire broke out,” he told the AP.
“The Nigerian government should take appropriate measures to protect us as citizens,” he added. “We have never experienced anything like this before.”
It’s a ‘new phase of an old conflict’
The strikes are the outcome of a months long tense diplomatic clash between the West African nation and the US
The Trump administration has said Nigeria is experiencing a genocide of Christians, a claim the Nigerian government has rejected.
However, Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs now said the strikes resulted from intelligence sharing and strategic coordination between the two governments.
Yusuf Tuggar, Nigeria’s foreign minister, called the airstrikes a “new phase of an old conflict” and said he expected more strikes to follow.
“For us, it is something that has been ongoing,” Tuggar added, referring to attacks that have targeted Christians and Muslims in Nigeria for years.
Bulama Bukarti, a security analyst on sub-Saharan Africa, said the residents’ fear is compounded by a lack of information.
Nigerian security forces have since cordoned off the area of the strikes and access was not allowed.
Bukarti said transparency would go a long way to calm the local residents. “The more opaque the governments are, the more panic there will be on the ground, and that is what will escalate tensions.”
Foreign fighters operate in Nigeria
Analysts say the strikes might have been intended for the Lakurawa group, a relatively new entrant to Nigeria’s complex security crisis.
The group’s first attack was recorded around 2018 in the northwestern region before the Nigerian government officially announced its presence last year. The composition of the group has been documented by security researchers as primarily consisting of foreigners from the Sahel.
However, experts say ties between the Lakurawa group and Daesh are unproven. The Islamic State West African Province — a Daesh affiliate in Nigeria — has its strongholds in the northeastern part of the country, where it is currently involved in a power struggle with its parent organization, Boko Haram.
“What might have happened is that, working with the American government, Nigeria identified Lakurawa as a threat and identified camps that belong to the group,” Bukarti said.
Still, some local people feel vulnerable.
Aliyu Garba, a Jabo village leader, told the AP that debris left after the strikes was scattered, and that residents had rushed to the scene. Some picked up pieces of the debris, hoping for valuable metal to trade, and Garba said he fears they could get hurt.
The strikes rattled 17-year-old Balira Sa’idu, who has been preparing for her upcoming marriage.
“I am supposed to be thinking about my wedding, but right now I am panicking,” she said. “The strike has changed everything. My family is afraid, and I don’t even know if it is safe to continue with the wedding plan in Jabo.”
