Chapter 538 The French’s Temptation

The other side.

After the 1998 Singapore Air Show, the leader of the French delegation, Guillaume Le Maire, took a flight back to China alone without even waiting for all the exhibition equipment to be packed.

Because of what he had experienced in the past few days, he had completely lost his patience in waiting.

Due to various coincidences, France, which originally had great expectations, gained little in the arms sales market.

The new Rafale fighter jet has not won the favor of any country because it is still in the prototype stage and the price is astonishing.

In the past, the Mirage 2000, which once occupied an important position in the international arms sales market, has been upgraded to the Mirage 2000-5 and even conducted a joint flight show with the Singapore Air Force. However, as an aircraft with small size and potential, The third generation of medium and light aircraft has finally declined.

Indonesia and Malaysia, two countries with relatively stable economies after experiencing the Asian financial crisis, obviously favor the larger, heavier, and even cheaper Su-27 and Su-30.

As for the extremely wealthy Singapore Air Force, as a loyal ally of the United States, the first choice is naturally F15 or F16.

In short, it is impossible to focus on French aircraft.

The Thai army has shown some interest in the Mirage 2000-5, but the economy that bore the brunt of the financial crisis is obviously no longer able to support its large army.

You know, when the economic momentum was good a few years ago, the Thai army purchased nearly 60 F16A/B fighter jets, 4 new frigates, and even a light aircraft carrier in a very short period of time.

Now that he has suddenly returned to poverty, it is difficult to maintain the existing equipment scale, so naturally he cannot spare the money to buy new ones.

As for several other Southeast Asian countries...

They did not return to poverty.

Because I have never been rich...

Therefore, these countries are generally more interested in China's two improved MiG-21 fighter jets, and are obviously not the target customers of French equipment.

In short...

French, pull it off.

Of course, the French military industry has a profound foundation after all, and a single failure at an air show will not have any impact on the overall arms sales pattern.

However, considering that the reputation of French equipment in the traditional market, that is, West Asia and North Africa, cannot be restored in a short period of time, this failed effort to open up new markets is still a bit disappointing.

People without thought, he must worry about.

Flamel may not have heard this sentence.

But I definitely understand the truth.

Therefore, his thinking is very clear——

The top priority is to complete a few businesses with enough influence to stop the decline in public opinion and the market.

The former may be even more important.

Army and naval equipment are not the French's strengths.

The task of completing this business naturally falls on France’s pride, the aviation industry.

In a short period of time, the only equipment they could come up with that had "sufficiently influential" equipment were Rafale fighter jets and NH90 helicopters.

The problem currently faced by the former is that the development progress of the M88 engine planned to be equipped is hindered. Although it has borrowed a lot of design from the F110 engine, its actual reliability and lifespan are problematic.

Even after reducing the thrust by nearly 15%, the M88-2 is still plagued by reliability and failures.

For this reason, the first few Rafale prototypes had to be temporarily equipped with imported F404 engines to test other subsystems, which obviously could not be successfully put into service in a short period of time.

It’s impossible for the Chinese to have any unique research on turbofan engines, right?

Flamel looked at the two photos in front of him and quickly put this unrealistic idea behind him.

In contrast, as Kurt Jean Pierre said the other day -

Most of the problems faced by NH90 are not technical problems.

If it can achieve the same quiet performance as China's improved Dolphin, it will definitely be a killer in the 10-ton helicopter market.

However, there are two huge obstacles facing Le Maire.

One is the "close" allies who are eagerly waiting to get a piece of the project.

Second, the helicopter silent technology is at least currently only mastered by the Chinese, and the NH90 is, at least on paper, a military project.

Therefore, he needs to find a way to convince the Ministry of National Defense and the President, so that these people who do not understand technology and are likely to be biased believe that they should cooperate with China on the helicopter project.

Relatively speaking, the first problem is easier to solve.

Eurocopter itself occupies the dominant position in the entire project, so it only needs to act tougher as Pierre said before.

Therefore, Le Maire, who thought about it all the way on the plane, finally decided to start with the second question first.

…

After determining the order in which to solve the problem, the next step is to think of specific solutions.

There is no hope of applying directly. Not only is it impossible to pass, but you may also be labeled as a Chinese spy.

Although Le Maire is not afraid of this, the less trouble the better.

Therefore, after returning to the office, he immediately found his secretary.

"Caroline, help me collect the activities related to China in our country in recent months as soon as possible and make a list for me."

In order to prepare for the Singapore Air Show, Le Maire has been away from France for nearly half a month. Coupled with the painstaking preparations in the early stage, he was somewhat out of touch with the current situation when he returned.

The female secretary’s eyes widened slightly:

"It has something to do with China... everything?"

Although China's international influence could not be said to be particularly great in the late 1990s, it was already a country with a population of 1.2 billion that was gradually opening up.

Even for the sake of the market, official and unofficial exchanges between countries and China are extremely frequent every year.

It's definitely not something that one person can collect casually.

Caroline once began to wonder if she had offended the other party.

Although she is a government employee and is not actually completely under the control of the client, it is still unpleasant to be shoehorned in.

"Well... it's related to the aviation business, or something we can have some influence on."

Flamel thought for a moment, then narrowed it down a bit.

Caroline breathed a sigh of relief and nodded slightly:

"Okay, I'll hand it over to you as soon as possible."

It should be said that Caroline was very efficient. That afternoon, a detailed summary sheet was placed on Le Maire's desk.

The latter was also a little stunned when he looked at the dozen or so densely packed pages of paper in front of him.

As the vice president of the French Aerospace Industry Association, he didn't even know that there could be so many exchanges between the two parties.

"After the signing of the cooperation agreement last year, the number of unofficial exchanges between us and China increased rapidly. These are only the projects that I can count."

Caroline explained:

"However, most of them have no actual content and are routine relationship maintenance activities. I have bolded the relatively important items so you can pay special attention to them."

Flamel opened the document in front of him, and sure enough he found that there were a few bold items scattered on each page.

Not much.

After all, the two parties are still in the early stages of cooperation. Although the cooperation is heating up quickly, mutual trust and understanding are not enough. It belongs to the stage where there is more retreat business.

But this saved him a lot of trouble.

"The groundbreaking ceremony of Airbus's China General Assembly Base and the signing ceremony of a new batch of Airbus aircraft orders..."

"The first flight ceremony of the Airbus A330AIT test aircraft..."

"CAAC/JAA Joint Icing Simulation Wind Tunnel Unveiling Ceremony..."

"Joint training of Chinese and French Air Force pilots..."

"Airbus new supplier license issued..."

"..."

After flipping through a few pages, there was indeed a lot of meaningful content, but nothing related to his purpose this time... was found.

"The French naval fleet visits East and Southeast Asia..."

When he saw this article, Flamel frowned:

"Why is this line marked in black? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with us."

"Because I inquired through personal connections, the commander of this trip, Vice Admiral Laurie Vojour, is a fellow countryman of yours. I guess you may know him."

As a secretary, you have a strong ability to communicate with each other in private.

Especially for someone like Caroline, who is in her early 30s, on the rise in her career, has excellent appearance, and has some experience, she often has quite exaggerated connections.

Flamel's eyes lit up and he sat up straight.

"Although we are not particularly familiar with each other, we were indeed classmates and have been in contact ever since."

"Do you have more detailed information about this visit?"

"Yes, please wait a moment."

Caroline lowered her head, pulled out a few pages of documents and reports from a thick folder under her arm, and handed them to Flamel.

"Visiting 14 countries, the total effective itinerary after subtracting the road is 17 days, of which you plan to stay in China alone for 5 days?"

When the latter looked at this schedule, everyone was almost dumbfounded.

"According to information from the Naval Staff, the main purpose of this trip is actually to promote relations with China. It is just a trip all the way. If it only goes to one country, the purpose is a bit too obvious and it will not be beneficial to Congress. It’s so easy to explain, so another 13 destinations have been added.”

Flamel thought for a while and probably knew that this matter was because the navy and shipbuilding industry wanted to make up for the mistakes they had made.

The Lafayette frigate procurement case a few years ago ended up in troubled waters, and neither the two countries nor the three parties involved were satisfied in the end.

As a member of the Aerospace Industry Association, he certainly would not know more details.

However, considering that the French shipbuilding bureau was forced by pressure in the end and decided to only deliver the hull with a power system, and also gave China a lot of compensation in some subsequent naval technical cooperation, there were no serious consequences.

Considering the overall cooperation between the two parties now, the atmosphere of this trip should not be particularly tense.

So this is a good opportunity for Le Maire's plan.

Thinking of this, he turned the information to the next page:

"Visiting ships..."

"Jean Bart air defense destroyer, Meiyue patrol frigate, Durance River integrated supply ship..."

(It’s this Jean Bart, not that Jean Bart)

It can be seen that the scale of the formation is not large, but the level is very high, and a lieutenant general was even sent to lead the team.

And more importantly, it is completely in line with Le Maire's next plan.

"Caroline, help me make an appointment with General Vojour. The sooner the better."

"Is it a business meeting? Or a private meeting?"

Caroline packed up the materials that Flamel had read on the table in front of her and held them in her arms again.

The latter took off his glasses and thought briefly:

"For a private meeting, choose to book a booth in the behind-the-scenes restaurant after get off work on Friday. I know that many people in the Ministry of Defense like to discuss things there."