France may hit back on MGCS

Rheinmetall chief Armin Papperger does not exclude a French withdrawal from MGCS. He says the danger is still there, although nothing has been decided. The key issue is money. France may be preparing to cut its contribution to less than half of what was initially expected, while the companies involved in the programme have so far received only around €25 million after almost a decade of work.

The political context is important. Germany and France have already failed to keep SCAF alive as the flagship project of their air combat cooperation. If Paris now reduces its commitment to MGCS, the message will be difficult to ignore: the two largest defence-industrial powers in the EU can spend more nationally, but still struggle to build major weapons systems together.

France also needs a tank. The Leclerc cannot remain the answer forever, and the 2040 horizon is already far away. Germany has Leopard 2, industry momentum, Rheinmetall, KNDS Deutschland and now the interim Leopard 3 concept, which could arrive in the early 2030s. France cannot simply watch the land systems market move while waiting for a programme that may not deliver before the 2040s.

This is also a problem for Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz because both need at least one visible Franco-German defence success. National rearmament is moving, budgets are growing, and companies are receiving orders, but bilateral flagship programmes are producing crises rather than capabilities. If SCAF is gone and MGCS starts to collapse, Franco-German defence cooperation will enter a very weak phase at exactly the moment when Europe says it wants strategic autonomy.