France and Germany Abandon £100bn Joint Fighter Jet Project
Paris and Berlin ended a nine-year effort to develop a next-generation combat aircraft after Dassault and Airbus failed to resolve core disputes over the program.
france24.comFrance and Germany abandoned a joint project to build a new fighter jet as part of the Future Combat Air System in June 2026. The project, valued at £100bn, had been launched in 2017 by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel. Irresolvable disagreements between Dassault, the French aviation company involved, and Airbus, the European aerospace company whose defence unit is based in Germany, caused the cancellation.
The Guardian reported that the decision followed months of stalled talks between the two firms over workshare, intellectual property and design authority. The collapse ends a flagship effort to pool European resources for a sixth-generation aircraft intended to replace France’s Rafale and Germany’s Eurofighter fleets.
The Guardian noted that the termination sent a signal about the difficulty of achieving strategic autonomy without deeper industrial coordination.
The original 2017 agreement had envisioned a single airframe, engine and sensor suite developed under a single prime contractor structure. Dassault had sought lead design authority on the basis of its experience with the Rafale, while Airbus argued for a more balanced governance model reflecting Germany’s financial contribution.
No alternative bilateral or multilateral framework has been announced to replace the cancelled program.
