The federal government will soon launch the tender procedure for the replacement of Luftwaffe Tornadoesby 2025. 4 aircraft, 3 American and one European, are in the running: the F15C Strike Eagle, the F18 E/F Super Hornet and F-35A Lightning II on the US side, and the Typhoon of Eurofighter on the European side.
If the Luftwaffe, the majority of whose executives were partly trained in the United States, does not hide its desire to equip itself with F35s, the federal government openly gives preference to the Eurofighter.
As for France, it more than openly supports the choice of the European plane, by not proposing the Rafale, which would be by far the most appropriate choice to replace the Tornado in its missions, and constantly warning against the devastating effects that the adoption of the F-35 by the Luftwaffe could have on the the European aeronautical industry, European strategic independence, and the Franco-German SCAF program.
This French support is not without reciprocity. Indeed, Germany is working behind the scenes in Belgium to support the French strategic partnership offer, rather than the American F-35, and even in the face of the British offer of Typhoon.
Because, beyond the astronomical prices of the F-35, for purchase but especially for use, with a price per flight hour today exceeding $60.000, the choice of the F-35 imposes technological dependence very strong vis-à-vis the United States and Lockheed.
In any case, the German choices, and, to a lesser extent, the Belgian ones, will certainly constitute a turning point for the construction of the Europe of Defense, so dear to France. If the two countries made, against all expectations, the choice of European aircraft, the signal given could effectively lead several other countries, therefore Italy and Spain, to reassess their own policies of dependence on the US industry and its control.
