32 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/NOVEMBER 3/10, 2014 AviationWeek.com/awstDEFENSEinviting heads of industry to come
and talk with us about the purchase
of this material because there could
be export possibilities involved with
this as well,” Le Drian says.
He declines to specify what types
of defense equipment would be pur-
chased by the company for leaseback
to the government. But in testimony
before lawmakers last month, the
head of the DGA, France’s defense
procurement agency, cited the Air-
bus A400M tactical transport plane
as one possibility.
“Take the example of an A400M de-
livered to France in 2014,” DGA Direc-
tor General Laurent Collet-Billon said.
“We resell it to the project company for
about €150 million, and the company
pays us immediately that amount,
then we pay for a pre-agreed period
an amount equal to the annual rent,”
including equipment depreciation.
Other examples could include the
Airbus Multirole Tanker Transport,
CN235 transport aircraft and “one
might also consider helicopters for mar-
itime surveillance,” Collet-Billon said.
However, not all material purchases
would easily lend themselves to leaseby the defense ministry. For exam-
ple, lawmakers are nervous about
the lease of refueling aircraft or any
other asset associated with France’s
nuclear deterrent, especially if non-
French investors comprise the com-
pany’s ownership.
Pierre Lellouche, trade minister
under former French President Nico-
las Sarkozy, says he was disappointed
in Le Drian’s proposal to establish an
outside company that would lease ma-
terial to the armed forces and asserts
that his entire budget was heavily reli-
ant on unstable sources of funds.
“You have invented a special tool, a
legal UFO,” Lellouche told lawmakers
at the hearing. “You want to give own-
ership of weapons—the heart of our
sovereignty—to we don’t know what
private enterprise,” he said, asserting
that the proposal would face owner-
ship and insurance concerns. “It all
seems surreal.”
In addition to skittish lawmakers,
Le Drian could face opposition to the
proposal from the French tax authori-
ties, which over the summer signaled
their discomfort to parliamentar-
ians. “The letters we received showthat there has been some discussion
on this topic, but they show very high
tension and, at least, a lack of conver-
gence,” says Francois Cornut-Gentille,
a member of the fi nance committee.
While Le Drian vows to make good
on his promise of stitching together a
patchwork of funding solutions and
shore up the nation’s military spend-
ing, he concedes that the ministry con-
tinues to come up short in paying an-
nual bills, which lawmakers say pile up
as they roll from one year into the next.
“It is one of my major concerns,”
Le Drian says, adding that he expects
the ministry’s amount in arrears to be
lower this year than last. “It probably
will decrease from €3.4 billion in 2013
to €3.1 in 2014.”
But Lellouche says that between
the ministry’s €2.1 billion dependence
on one-time revenues, the annual
carry over of around €3.4 billion in
unpaid bills and another €1.2 billion
in operational expenses, about €6.8
billion of the €31.4 billion budget for
2015 remains uncertain. “In total, 23%
of the annual budget, or the equiva-
lent of 80% of the equipment budget,
is fi ctitious,” Lellouche says. cI
mpressed with the performance of its fi rst two U.S. MQ-9 Reap-
er unmanned aerial systems (UAS), France is looking forward to
delivery of a third in early 2015.
“We made the right choice, if you believe the users,” Defense
Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French lawmakers last month,
adding that the General Atomics-built Reaper has enabled “mean-
ingful” engagements in support of the French-led Operation
Barkhane in Mali, and that the U.S. technology is superior to that
of France's four Harfang s built by Israei Aerospace Industries.
Reaper, which is larger than the Harfang and can carry a bigger
sensor payload with more electrical power for radar and commu-
nications, has been in service with France since late last year. The
third of 12 Reaper systems on order, it is expected to arrive in Nia-
mey, Niger, at the beginning of 2015, according to Laurent Collet-
Billon, head of French defense equipment agency DGA, who says
another system is to be ordered next year.
In his testimony , Collet-Billon said he hopes the U.S. will work
with France to allow “Frenchifi cation” of the Reaper system.
“We hope that the U.S. Air Force agrees to give us the op-
portunity to modify the equipment or programming of the cur-
rent Reaper production,” Collet-Billon said. “As Americans have
their own equipment in Africa, in Niamey, they fully understand
the value of collaboration. We are confi dent they will make the
necessary ef orts.”REAPER LOVE
Collet-Billon said that while such modifi cations could be made
to France's future Reaper orders, “we question the realization of
an eavesdropping payload on the drones,” and added: “We are not
certain the Americans would be willing to give us their own tech-
nologies in this fi eld.”
In the meantime, France expects the EU to support a multi-
lateral development of an indigenous UAS system for surveillance
and reconnaissance missions.
Le Drian explained that France is committed “to the gen-
eration that will follow the Reaper drones in 2025.” He said
an industry proposal by Dassault Aviation of France, Airbus
Defense and Space of Germany and Finmeccanica of Italy to
develop a medium-altitude, long-endurance UAS would be as-
sessed at a European Council meeting scheduled for June next
year.
“The European Defense Agency has been tasked to carry out
the studies, particularly on the integration of drones in the skies
over Europe,” Le Drian said, though he said Berlin has been reti-
cent to support a European UAS system since its own EuroHawk
development ran afoul of International Civil Aviation Organization
regulatory constraints last year.
“After extensive public debate that took place in Germany
around the EuroHawk drone in particular, we will develop active
cooperation in the fi eld of observation drones,” he said. “It will
allow us to have a new generation of drones, which seems es-
sential.” c圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀圀漀爀氀搀䴀愀最猀⸀渀攀琀
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