In January 2023, when the debate focused on the transfer of Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks to the Ukrainian army, France made it known that there was no question of parting with its Leclercs. The Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, explained this by indicating that any transfer of arms to Ukraine must be evaluated according to three criteria.
It must “respond to a defensive logic, to control escalation” and “not deteriorate our security and defense model”, he said in the Senate, before emphasizing the importance of be able to ensure maintenance in operational condition [MCO] equipment delivered. However, when it comes to Leclerc, maintenance “is a sensitive issue,” he noted.
The minister could have cited a fourth criterion: that, beyond their intrinsic qualities and performance, the equipment delivered can enable the Ukrainian forces to gain in efficiency.
In any case, on June 6, President Macron undoubtedly broke with this approach by announcing the transfer to Ukraine of an unspecified number of Mirage 2000-5F, a combat aircraft then supposed to remain in force. service in the Air & Space Force [AAE] until 2029.
However, the Mirage 2000-5F remains intensively used by the 1/2 Cigognes hunting group [l’unité « référente » de l’AAE en matière de défense aérienne] and the 3/11 Corsica fighter squadron [ce dernier ayant assuré 200 missions et 600 heures de vol pour sécuriser la mer Rouge depuis Djibouti, nldr]. According to the 2024 edition of “Key Defense Figures”, twenty-eight examples were still in service as of December 31, 2023.
In October, still without specifying the number, Mr. Lecornu confirmed that the Mirage 2000-5F intended for Ukraine would be modified to allow them to carry air-to-ground munitions as well as to improve their electronic warfare system. And he added that these devices would be delivered to kyiv during the first half of 2025, that is to say after the Ukrainian pilots and technicians have completed their training.
That being said, the relevance of this transfer of Mirage 2000-5 will depend on the number of aircraft concerned and the capacity to ensure their MCO [ce qui suppose une chaîne logistique ad hoc] while Ukraine is also due to receive several dozen used F-16 fighter-bombers.
However, in his budgetary opinion on the “preparation and employment of forces – Air”, MP Frank Giletti [RN] reveals that France will soon deliver “six Mirage 2000-5F to the Ukrainian armed forces [FAU] » with a “comprehensive support model”. Will these six planes be enough to produce military effects? In any case, their transfer will have consequences on the activity of the AAE, whose combat aviation format is already “cut to the bone”.
“These transfers of Mirage 2000-5 will result in […] a postponement of activity on the fleet of renovated Rafale and Mirage 2000D at the risk of an inevitable increase in MCO costs and a deterioration in their availability. They will also accelerate, without prejudice, the withdrawal from operational service of the Mirage 2000-5,” warns the MP.
Also, according to him, “the anticipation of deliveries from the 5th tranche of Rafale at the F4 standard is a respectable compromise to limit the 'capacity gap' resulting from various losses and disposals.” And to specify: “In the long term, however, the final target will remain unchanged, the advance orders do not consist of additional aircraft.”
“A Rafale requiring on average three years to be produced, this anticipation of deliveries must be recorded in the finance bill for 2025. Beyond just the advance of orders at a constant target, [ils serait souhaitable] that the Rafale Air target for 2030 be increased in order to truly compensate for future sales of Mirage 2000-5 which will cause a de facto reduction in the format of our fighter aircraft for three years,” Mr. Giletti further insisted.
As a reminder, at the end of the Military Programming Law [LPM] 2024-30, the AAE will have to field 48 renovated Mirage 2000D [soit 7 de moins qu’initialement prévu] and 137 Rafale. That's 185 combat aircraft in total. As of December 31, 2023, it had 196.
However, it is not certain that the AAE can achieve, if not maintain, this format of 185 aircraft, which should allow it to honor its operational contracts.
“Rafale deliveries must be scheduled with this in mind with a view to replacing the renovated Mirage 2000-5 and Mirage 2000D fleets [retrait en 2035]. However, the LPM 2024-2030 sets the number of Rafales that the AAE will have at 137 by 2030, i.e. 48 aircraft less than the target of 185 Rafales set by the LPM 2019-2025. The recent loss of 2 Rafale Bs and the hypotheses of transfers of Mirage 2000-5 to the FAU suggest at this stage of programming a reduction to 185 fighter planes for 10 years [2026-2036] », underlined the rapporteur.
According to him, this can only have “deleterious consequences on the operational activity indicators of fighter pilots which are slightly lower than the targets, but above all on the availability of over-demanded equipment”.
Photo : AAE
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