Losing Sorely - President Macron Claims Belgium’s Choice of American F-35 Over Rafale ‘Undermines European Security’ as French Media Slams Brussels’ Lack of Continental Solidarity

Belgium’s long anticipated announcement of its official decision to acquire the Lockheed Martin F-35A single engine light fighter as a replacement to the F-16 Fighting Falcon has met a cold reception in neighbouring France, which went to considerable lengths to market its own fighter, the twin engine Dassault Rafale, to the Belgian Air Force. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said that buying F-35 was a more commercially viable option, a result of both the far greater interoperability the jet shared with the F-16 and the definitive price tag on the American jet relative to its French counterpart. The Prime Minister stated:  “We asked the French to provide explanations concerning their proposal and price, but this was not done,” describing his country’s decision as completely transparent and economically justified. The F-35A is not only considerably less costly than the French Rafale, but is also far more sophisticated with a state of the art radar cross section reducing stealth airframe, a world leading sensor suite and the ability to deploy a far wider range of munitions. With the U.S. military aviation industry well in advance of its French counterpart, and the F-35 being produced in numbers over ten times as great as the Rafale - thus benefitting from considerable economies of scale, the United States has been able to provide a far more capable jet at a considerably lower cost - much to the chagrin of France’s own defence sector.

In response to the Belgian decision, French media outlets have slammed the choice of the F-35 as a betrayal of the “European” choice - criticising Belgium’s lack of solidarity with a neighbouring European power which many expected would influence its decision in favour of the Rafale despite the apparent superiority of the F-35. French President Emanuel Macron took this one step further, claiming Brussels had undermined European security by acquiring the fifth generation jet rather than a fourth generation European made system. While Belgium is one of over a dozen export clients for the F-35A, an aircraft which is being manufactured in the thousands for the U.S. military alone, it is expected that France’s Dassault will struggle to keep production lines open - with only three small foreign orders for the Rafale having been made and the largest order having been cancelled by the Indian Air Force. In all these cases reports of corruption have been widespread - from Qatari and Egyptian acquisitions of the jet in exchange for diplomatic support at times of uncertainty to the scandal surrounding India’s own purchase. Ultimately the F-35A is likely to seriously undermine the viability of European jets to compete on world export markets, and Belgium’s choice of the stealth platform over its European competitors represents but one early sign of this growing trend.