Saudi Arabia has asked Dassault Aviation for a quote for the acquisition of 54 Rafale planes, while the kingdom has so far sourced its combat planes from the Americans and the British, says La Tribune Sunday. The weekly, citing unidentified “concordant sources”, assures that the French aircraft manufacturer has “until November 10 to respond” to Riyadh’s request. Contacted by AFP on Saturday evening, Dassault declined to comment.
Such a success “would be resounding” for the Rafale, notes La Tribune Sunday, according to which the Saudi air force rather favors the American F-15 or the Eurofighter Typhoon manufactured by a consortium including Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and Spain. However, Germany has frozen arms sales to Riyadh since the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the end of 2018, recalls La Tribune Sundayraising the possibility that the interest shown by Arabia in the Rafale is a means of putting pressure on its usual suppliers of combat aircraft.
Dassault’s plane has already made its mark among Arabia’s neighbors since Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are equipped with it. Once considered unsaleable outside of France, the device entered service in 2004 in the French navy and enjoyed late export success. Of the 453 new aircraft ordered at this stage, 261 have been ordered by seven foreign customers (in addition to the three Middle Eastern countries, these are Greece, Croatia, Indonesia and India ), and 192 by France.