FCAS Collapse: Old France-Germany Fighter Jet Tensions Resurface

The FCAS collapse ends a €100 billion joint fighter jet dream, reviving decades-old France-Germany industrial rivalries that doomed the program.

France and Germany have officially scrapped the New Generation Fighter, the crewed jet central to their Future Combat Air System, after nine years of industrial disputes proved impossible to resolve.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed the termination June 8 at the ILA Berlin Air Show, ending an estimated €100 billion program meant to replace France’s Rafale jets and the Eurofighter Typhoon flown by Germany and Spain by around 2040.

The call came from Berlin. Merz advised French President Emmanuel Macron to abandon the joint effort, according to Reuters.

The collapse of the Future Combat Air System, or FCAS, traced back to two interlocking conflicts: a strategic split over what kind of aircraft France, Germany and Spain each needed, and an industrial battle over who would design and build it.

France wanted a successor to the Rafale capable of carrying nuclear weapons and operating from an aircraft carrier, to sustain its independent nuclear deterrent. Germany and Spain wanted a successor to the Eurofighter Typhoon — a NATO-integrated, land-based multirole jet. The two governments were describing different aircraft.

Underneath that divide sat a fight over industrial leadership. France’s Dassault Aviation wanted design authority and the dominant share of the work. Germany’s Airbus Defence and Space, representing German and Spanish industry, refused to accept a subordinate role.

Government-appointed mediators reported April 18 that a jointly built crewed fighter was no longer feasible under any arrangement either country was willing to accept.

The Industrial War: Dassault vs. Airbus

The dispute between Dassault Aviation and Airbus Defence and Space centered on three issues: program leadership, workshare and intellectual property rights.

Dassault, drawing on decades of combat aircraft design experience with the Mirage and Rafale families, argued that design authority for the New Generation Fighter had to rest with the company. Airbus countered that a Dassault-led program would relegate Germany’s and Spain’s aerospace sectors to subcontractor status on Europe’s marquee defense program — a political and industrial nonstarter. Airbus pushed for genuine co-leadership instead.

Dassault Chairman and CEO Éric Trappier warned in March that the standoff could doom the program. “If Airbus maintains its position of not wanting to work with Dassault, then the project is dead.” He said it at a Paris press briefing.

Trappier said Dassault would look elsewhere if necessary. “We will find other partners if we need to. But it’s not up to me to choose their nationality; it’s up to the French authorities to approach other countries to see if they’d like to collaborate on developing a future combat system.”

He also rejected the idea of splitting the program into two aircraft. “France does not support the idea of two aircraft. I have heard from the highest levels of my [French] authorities that ‘no, no, no, no, the operational requirements are identical,’ or at least there is agreement at the operational levels.”

He also described his company’s view of program leadership: “Dassault 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.”

Airbus declined to comment for that March report. Reports on workshare demands also diverged: one version held that Dassault sought up to 80% of the fighter’s workshare, which German officials saw as a bid to dominate the program. French media offered a different account of the same figure, reporting that it “is in reality neither a political demand nor a unilateral French position. It is a figure put forward by Dassault as part of a report commissioned by the program itself, as a technical recommendation aimed at meeting the 2045 deadline.”

A Strategic Fault Line, Nine Years in the Making

Germany proposed developing two variants of the New Generation Fighter to satisfy each country’s differing requirements. France rejected that approach, insisting on a single aircraft designed around French specifications with Paris in the lead.

The dispute echoed history. Dassault and France were originally part of the Future European Fighter Aircraft program, the precursor to the Eurofighter, before walking away to develop the Rafale independently amid disagreements over design authority and operational requirements. FCAS reproduced the same structural conflict nearly a decade later.

Germany’s decision to buy F-35 jets for its NATO nuclear-sharing role, rather than wait on an FCAS-derived solution, signaled Berlin’s hedge against the program’s failure well before the June announcement. Germany’s new national aviation strategy, adopted June 10, now requires that any future German combat aircraft program include Airbus as a co-lead.

Merz told Macron of Germany’s decision to terminate the program on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Tivat, Montenegro, on June 5-6. The public announcement followed two days later at ILA Berlin.

Allies React

Spain, the third FCAS partner, was left without a clear path forward after the announcement.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles called the collapse damaging in a June 9 public statement. “I think this is bad news, very worrying for Europe and for Europe’s strategic autonomy. The interests of industry have been placed ahead of the interests of Europe’s security and defence.”

Belgium, an observer nation in the program, was equally blunt. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever addressed the decision at a public event in Brussels. “This is that we have chosen, to be irrelevant in a crucial part of air defense, not only now, but in a decade as well. This is pure stupidity.”

Shares in Spain’s Indra fell almost 5% after the collapse was confirmed. Six Spanish defense firms — Indra, the Spanish arm of Airbus, GMV, Sener, ITP Aero and Grupo Oesía — issued a joint declaration saying they were ready to work with Spain and other partners on a next-generation combat system.

What Comes Next

Airbus has responded with a new industrial alliance. At ILA Berlin, the company formally launched Team Gen 6, grouping eight German defense and aerospace firms — Airbus Defence and Space, AUTOFLUG, Diehl Defence, Hensoldt, Liebherr, MBDA Deutschland, MTU Aero Engines and Rohde & Schwarz — around development of a future sixth-generation combat aircraft. Spanish firms including Indra, GMV, Grupo Oesía, Sener, ITP Aero and the Spanish arm of Airbus have signaled interest in joining.

Spain’s Defense Ministry confirmed it will hold a working-level meeting with Germany on the sidelines of the next European Union Defence Ministers gathering in Brussels to explore a path toward a future sixth-generation fighter.

The Combat Cloud, the networked digital architecture meant to link aircraft, drones and sensors under the original FCAS concept, may survive through new cooperative arrangements. Its fate is expected to come up at a Franco-German ministerial council scheduled for July 17.

Dassault, for its part, says it lacks the financial means to develop a clean-sheet successor to the Rafale on its own, though it has the technical know-how. Trappier told the French Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and the Armed Forces on July 1 that a Rafale F5, dubbed a “Super-Rafale,” could serve as a fallback. Asked about the plan B for FCAS, he testified: “That’s a Super Rafale, which doesn’t mean we won’t develop a future combat aircraft.”

Trappier also aired grievances about a separate program, the Eurodrone surveillance project, during the same testimony. “Airbus told us to get out. We don’t agree, and so we are in discussions on why we are excluded.”

Britain, Italy and Japan’s Global Combat Air Programme, targeting a 2035 service entry with a prototype demonstrator already in development, is now the only crewed sixth-generation fighter program still running in Europe.

Dassault’s existing Rafale line continues independently of any FCAS successor. The company closed 2025 with a firm order backlog of 220 aircraft and plans to build 28 jets in 2026, scaling to four per month by 2029.