France Wins Its Largest-Ever Weapon Order, Seals €16 Billion Deal To Sell 80 Rafale F4 Fighter Jets To UAE

France announced on Friday (Dec 3) that its has signed an agreement to sell 80 Rafale fighter jets worth 16 billion euros to the UAE in its largest-ever weapons deal.

The UAE, currently among French defence industry's biggest customers, also agreed to buy 12 Caracal military transport helicopters.

The agreement was inked in a ceremonial event attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces. Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation, signed the contract with Tareq Abdul Raheem Al Hosani, CEO of Tawazun Economic Council, in charge of security and defense acquisitions.

Macron was in Dubai to attend Expo 2020 Dubai.

The delivery of F4 model planes, which are still undergoing a €2-billion development programme scheduled to be completed in 2024, will commence beginning 2027. The F4 standard program was launched in 2017 by the French ministry of defence

The agreement came after more than a decade of protracted and often fractious negotiation between Paris and Abu Dhabi. In 2011, Abu Dhabi publicly rebuffing France’s offer to supply 60 planes in 2011 as “uncompetitive and unworkable”.

A multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by French aviation major Dassault Aviation, the Rafale has made impressive strides in international market despite competition from US and other European manufacturers. It now has six foreign clients including the Egyptian Air Force, the Indian Air Force, the Qatar Air Force, the Hellenic (Greece) Air Force, the Croatian Air Force and the United Arab Emirates Air Force.

The deal to acquire Rafale comes even as U.S faces domestic challenges in operationalising its F35 sale agreement with the gulf country.

In January 2021, the UAE signed a deal to purchase up to 50 F-35 joint strike fighter aircraft and 18 MQ-9 Reaper drones from the United States. The $23.37 billion included 50 F-35s worth $10.4 billion, 18 MQ-9Bs worth $2.97 billion, and $10 billion worth of air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions.

The deal with U.S, signed during the last days of President Donald Trump's administration, as however faced stiff domestic resistance. Biden administration announced a blanket review of all recent arms sales cleared by the Trump administration.

The U.S has also sought to link the proposed sale of F-35 fighter in its attempt to persuade UAE to abandon 5G technology from Chinese telecom behemoth Huawei.

Bloomberg reported that Biden administration asked UAE. to remove Huawei equipment from its networks within the next four years before it is scheduled to get the F-35 in 2026 or 2027,