France's Dassault open to cooperation after fighter programme collapse

PARIS, July 1 (Reuters) - French planemaker ​Dassault Aviation is open to cooperation after the collapse of a Franco-German-Spanish fighter programme, its CEO ​said ‌on Wednesday, while leaving open the prospect of working with a non-European partner. Eric Trappier ⁠was speaking in his first formal testimony ⁠since Germany and France last month ​scrapped a project to build a new-generation fighter following industrial disputes between Dassault and its main partner Airbus.

"We are capable of cooperating, we have shown it ​in ‌the past, but we want to cooperate with rules that are accepted from the start," he told a French Senate committee.

Trappier said the collapse of the core fighter part of the FCAS project followed irreconcilable differences ​with Airbus, which has in turn blamed Dassault for the breakdown.

Asked if France ‌could press ahead with its own fighter, as it did after quitting the Eurofighter in the 1980s, Trappier said, "We ‌can do it alone, that's possible, or we can find partners. Do these partners exclusively have to be European? That's an open question." There has been ​speculation that France could turn to Swedish planemaker Saab as a potential partner or team ‌up with a Middle East importing nation for the next generation of fighters due to budget constraints. Airbus is also courting Saab.

In the shorter term, ⁠for the ⁠next version of Dassault's existing Rafale fighter known ‌as Rafale F5, Trappier said he hoped to receive a development contract by the end of ​the year.

"We ​are studying the F5 with our partners now, ‌which should entail a development contract by the end of the year, if we want to maintain our schedule," he said. (Reporting by Florence Loeve and Tim Hepher; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Alexander Smith)

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