The jets in question. Wikimedia. Public domain.Last February, French company Dassault Aviations concluded a deal with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi exchanging 24 Rafale combat jets for 5.2 billion dollars.
The deal was chaperoned by the French state, which even lent Egypt 3 of the 5 billion dollars involved in the sale. In France, this deal was hailed as a tremendous success; the Figaro’s headline read “Historic contract for the Rafale in Egypt” and French president François Hollande, in unison with his right-wing detractors, lauded the sale publicly, even sending his Defence Minister to sign the deal in “the name of France”.
Indeed, the Rafale was for 14 years a thorn in France’s foot. Acknowledged to be one of the better planes on the market, the Rafale had since 2001 failed to seduce any national defense force enough to make them forget its formidable price tag. Deliverance came with the fall of the Euro and this first sale of the Rafale to the Egyptian Air Force. At the time of writing, France had just secured a second deal, this time with India.
