PARIS — France's top general Fabien Mandon admitted on Thursday that the Franco-German next-generation battle tank project had failed. It's one of the first times a French official has publicly acknowledged that the plans have faltered, after months of speculation about the fate of the Main Combat Ground System. We had hoped to build a future tank in cooperation with the Germans, but unfortunately, we have to acknowledge that the Germans have withdrawn from the project," the French chief of defense staff told lawmakers during a hearing on next year's budget.
MGCS — which involves KNDS France, KNDS Germany, Rheinmetall and Thales — has been bogged down by years of delays, industrial disputes and political tensions. POLITICO reported in June that the next-generation tank project was increasingly doomed. Mandon's admission comes only a few months after another high-stakes Franco-German defense industrial program — the Future Combat Air System — abruptly ended.
However, answering a question from a far-right National Rally lawmaker, the French general pushed back against the word "failure" to describe the MGCS's fate. "It's not a complete failure; it's an important decision by Germany, but our land forces have worked together for several years to determine what a future main battle tank should look like," he said. "It wasn't a waste of time.
But from an industrial standpoint, this isn't good news." A German defense official had no comment.
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