Borne-Scholz meeting: defense, a point of tension in the Franco-German relationship

It’s frowned upon to show up to a birthday party empty-handed. For the sixty years of the Élysée Treaty on Franco-German cooperation, on January 22, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz should avoid this embarrassment. Paris and Berlin announced on November 18 a “political agreement” on a common program considered essential for the future of the European aeronautical industry, that Future Air Combat System (SCAF), in which Spain also participates. However, there is still an industrial agreement between Dassault and Airbus, which the French presidency has assured is “about to be concluded”.

If this is indeed a substantial step forward, progress of the SCAF program, called to succeed the Rafale by 2040, is barely keeping up appearances. During their meeting this Friday in Berlin, Chancellor Scholz and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne will not fail to make the observation: between France and Germany, supposed to be the best partners on the continent, there are many disagreements. right now, especially when it comes to defense policy. Worse, the war in Ukraine seems to have distanced the two partners, whose differences in terms of security concepts are coming to light.

Across the Rhine, the Russian invasion was experienced as a shock. It led to the rapid creation of a special fund of 100 billion euros for the Bundeswehr, the German army. An opportunity to launch new Franco-German collaborations? Not at all. The first reflex of the Germans is to buy American, in this case F35 fighter planes, which will be able to transport nuclear missiles from the United States, and thus ensure the sharing of nuclear deterrence, within the framework of NATO.

The fund is essentially used to fill the holes in an ill-equipped and badly maintained army, after having been underfunded. “Philosophically, the Germans do not think in terms of developing their own capabilities, projecting themselves towards strategic autonomy at 60 like the French, they remain on an operational vision, of equipment purchases”, notes Renaud Bellais, co-director from the Defense Observatory to the Jean-Jaurès Foundation.

The tensions surrounding the European anti-missile shield project in recent weeks are a perfect example of this. The Élysée only discovered during Olaf Scholz’s major European speech in Prague at the end of August that Germany was going to invest “very significantly in [sa] air defence”, by allowing its “neighbors” to join this anti-missile shield program. On October 13, it announced, without France, but with 14 other countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary and United Kingdom) the creation of the European Sky Shield Initiative (ESSI).

Macron criticizes the German modus operandi

Already scalded by various energy subjects, Emmanuel Macron, considered this launch as too much vexation. To mark the occasion, on October 19, the Élysée canceled the holding of the Franco-German Council of Ministers, which was scheduled a few days later in Fontainebleau. Admittedly, French representatives took part in two preparatory meetings for the ESSI. But the absence of a privileged consultation, demanded by the Head of State, does not pass.

Proof that the attitude of Berlin remains across the throat of the French president, the latter sharply criticized the anti-missile shield during the presentation of the National Strategic Review, on the helicopter carrier Diksmuide, on November 9, at Toulon. “The air defense of our continent is a strategic, united and multi-pronged issue, which cannot be reduced to the promotion of a national industry or third-party industries at the expense of European sovereignty”, he said. he nutted.

In this case, the German anti-aircraft defense project uses three national systems, operating at different ranges and already existing: the Iris-T, German equipment; the Patriot, made by the American Raytheon; and the Arrow 3, developed by Israel. For its part, France would have liked to be able to associate its SAMP/T (the “Mamba”), developed with Italy, as well as the next generation of this system, on which manufacturers are working. However, the door is not closed: “We will propose and we will contribute,” said Emmanuel Macron.

Added to the psychodrama of the aerial shield are all the cooperation projects on hold, when they have not been purely and simply stopped. Thus, the Germans decided to withdraw from the modernization program of the Franco-German Tiger attack helicopters, to which they would prefer the purchase of AH-64EApache, from the American Boeing. France therefore assumes this project alone with Spain, which also has a fleet of these aircraft.

The joint maritime patrol aircraft and anti-submarine warfare program, dubbed MAWS (Maritime Airbone Warfare System), is not faring any better. It has been awaiting its official abandonment since the order, in 2021, by the German navy, of five P-8A Poseidon patrol planes, manufactured by Boeing. “These off-the-shelf purchases eat away at confidence, regrets Yohann Michel, researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). It’s like with Patriot systems: if it allows capacities to be recovered more quickly, it reduces the possibilities Europeans to reconnect with a high-level defense industry.”

That’s not all, since two other projects are on hold. The CIFS (Common Indirect Fire System), intended to succeed the French Caesar French and German PzH 2000 guns, has been postponed “beyond the 2045 horizon”. As for the battle tank of the future (MGCS), it is progressing more slowly than expected since Berlin imposed a second German industrialist, Rheinmetall, in addition to Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, to work with the French Nexter. After the SCAF, this other emblematic program could however take a new step, in 2023.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle left fallow

The general picture contrasts with the promises of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, signed in January 2019 by Emmanuel Macron and ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel. With the objective of completing that “of the Élysée”, the two parties then undertook to promote “the closest possible cooperation between their defense industries”. Alas, two years later, only the plane of the future manages to take the steps, in addition to the Eurodrone (initiated in 2015), a combat drone whose first flight is scheduled for 2026.

The document signed by Macron and Merkel also planned to “further strengthen cooperation between their armed forces with a view to establishing a common culture and operating joint deployments”. One achievement should be noted since: the installation at the Evreux air base of a Franco-German tactical transport squadron, made up of 10 aircraft (C130Js) and 260 people, to take part in external operations.

The initiative is part of the logic initiated in 1989 by Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President François Mitterrand with the creation of the Franco-German brigade (BFF). Based in Müllheim, just behind the Alsatian border, it has 5,600 soldiers of both nationalities. “Its role, above all symbolic, is to show that the two enemies of yesterday can do things together”, recalls Delphine Deschaux-Dutard, from the University of Grenoble Alpes. In any case, no lunch: for administrative reasons, its members take their meals in separate canteens. For a time, the Germans were also not allowed to ride in the back of French jeeps, for lack of seat belts.

Within the French army, passing through Müllheim is not considered the fastest route to a prestigious career. With barely a few deployments in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, the BFF is one of the least utilized units on the outside. In a 2010 report, the Court of Auditors pointed to his “underemployment”. Its deployments are complicated: in Mali, in 2018-2019, the brigade had to split. The French were engaged in Barkhane to carry out combat operations, while the Germans served in Minusma, a UN mission responsible for “support for political institutions”.

The war in Ukraine could be an opportunity to rethink the missions of this Franco-German brigade. “Nothing prohibits deploying it in the NATO countries facing Russia, suggests Yohann Michel. Its best opportunity for intervention is not the African theater and the Middle East, but rather the eastern front, where the Russian threat is seen with the same eye in Paris and Berlin. But that requires political will…” An ingredient that has sometimes been lacking in recent months in the Franco-German couple.