PARIS \u2014 France still believes in the faltering Future Combat Air System (FCAS) project with Germany, the CEO of jet-maker Dassault Aviation said today, but the company is willing to proceed with another industrial team if sharp disagreements with Airbus cannot be resolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will find other partners if we need to,\u201d Eric Trappier told reporters. \u201cBut it\u2019s not up to me to choose their nationality; it\u2019s up to the French authorities to approach other countries to see if they\u2019d like to collaborate on developing a future combat system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trappier bluntly said that \u201cif Airbus maintains its position of not wanting to work with Dassault, then the project is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trappier went on to push back against comments from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said last month<\/a> that Berlin needed different capabilities than Paris in a sixth-generation fighter system, the strongest indications yet Germany is turning the page on FCAS.<\/p>\n \u201cFrance does not support the idea of two aircraft,\u201d Trappier said today. \u201cI have heard from the highest levels of my [French] authorities that \u2018no, no, no, no, the operational requirements are identical,\u2019 or at least there is agreement at the operational levels.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: FCAS? GCAP? Tempest? Explaining Europe\u2019s sixth-generation fighter efforts<\/a><\/p>\n French President Emmanuel Macron said something similar during a trip to India where France is negotiating a contract for New Delhi to acquire scores of fourth-generation fighter jets. Europeans, Macron said, \u201cshould have a common model\u201d and adding that the \u201cnormal\u201d friction between industrial partners should not \u201cdecide the strategy of nations.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIs it the best use of our money to develop several planes? We must have a European standard,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n Trappier said today that when it comes to the governments\u2019 disagreements, he didn\u2019t know who was right. But the friction between his company and partner Airbus was on full display.<\/p>\n Trappier said Dassault has \u201cno problem with Germany, indeed we have other partnerships with the Germans,\u201d but he said it was Airbus that was not respecting the initial FCAS contract. That contract, Trappier contended, included not only the development of the next-generation fighter jet known as the Next Generation Fighter (NGF) but also drone wingmen and a \u201ccombat cloud\u201d communications network.<\/p>\n Dassault, he said, was put in charge of the fighter jet, while Airbus was responsible for the rest.<\/p>\n \u201cDassault believes that in order to be efficient there must be a real leader who decides that this sub-contractor is proficient, or not. Who decides on the forms of the aircraft, who takes the responsibility of then putting it in the air,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He said he understood that Airbus might not like that arrangement but \u00a0he could not agree to a \u201cco-co-co\u201d leadership approach. Trappier noted that Dassault would be a sub-contractor of Airbus for developing and building the drone wingmen \u201cand that doesn\u2019t worry us at all.\u201d<\/p>\n Airbus declined to comment for this report, but in the past the company has been less public about problems in the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n