<p >The French Navy has revealed details regarding its planned next generation aircraft carrier, which will replace the service’s current sole carrier capable of accommodating fixed with aircraft, the troubled <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/france-s-charles-de-gaulle-nuclear-aircraft-carrier-can-it-match-america-s-supercarriers" target="_blank">Charles De Gaulle</a>, from around the year 2038. A French Navy official at the Combined Naval Event revealed that the new 75,000 ton ship’s air wing will still be built around the Rafale M, which is currently the country’s only class of <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/india-paying-288m-new-rafales-already-behind" target="_blank">carrier based fighter</a>, and first entered service in 2006. This raises serious questions regarding the combat potential of the new carrier’s air wing, as while the United States transitioned from 2018 to field <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/marines-second-f35c-squadron" target="_blank">F-35C fifth generation fighters</a> from its carriers, with China set to follow with the <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/china-fc31-trials-deck" target="_blank">J-31 stealth fighter</a> before 2030, France is set to continue to rely solely on fourth generation fighters in its air wing into the 2040s. The position of French carrier air wings appears to be even more unfavourable when considering that even smaller navies such as those of the United Kingdom and Italy have for close to a decade integrated <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/marine-corps-cut-f35b-stealth-fighter-procurement" target="_blank">F-35B fighters</a> into their own carrier air wings, with Japan set to follow suite, leaving the Rafale’s capabilities obsolete by comparison. Combat testing has consistently show that even larger and more capable fourth generation fighters such as the F-15 and J-16 are comfortably outmatched by their fifth generation successors, with the discrepancy in capabilities with lighter fourth generation fighters like that Rafale that are constrained by short ranges, small radars, and relatively weak engines being significantly greater still.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/23/article_68305c5067b3b8_97667442.jpeg" title="U.S. Navy F-35C Fifth Generation Fighter on Nimitz Class Supercarrier"></p><p >By the time France’s new aircraft carrier enters service in the late 2030s, the United States and China will be approaching their first full decade fielding sixth generation fighters, with a significant possibility that these will have also been integrated into their carrier air wings. China’s&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/chinese-sixth-generation-cut-pentagon-demand-f35s-lockheed">unveiling</a>&nbsp;of flight prototypes of two separate sixth generation fighters in December 2024, both of which have been&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/china-sixth-generation-heavyweight-fighter-fourth-flight">intensively flight tested&nbsp;</a>since then, has added growing urgency to the United States’ own programs, including the U.S. Navy’s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/delays-contact-award-many-sixthgen">F/A-XX sixth generation</a> carrier based fighter which is scheduled to enter service years before France’s new Rafale-dependant carrier does. At least one of China’s two sixth generation fighters is also expected to have been adapted for carrier operations by then. As a result, the air wing of France’s new carrier will be not one, but two full generations behind the cutting edge. With the Rafale having first flown in 1986, the fighter will be over half a century old before a successor enters service.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/23/article_68305c38c93290_35896901.png" title="French Rafale Fighters on Carrier Charles De Gaulle"></p><p >The growing discrepancy between the capabilities of French fighters and those fielded in China and the United States affects not only the Navy, but also the Air Force, with the country speculated to potentially be<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/france-set-to-be-last-nuclear-weapons-state-without-stealth-fighter" > left as the last </a>nuclear weapons state to field a fifth or sixth generation fighter. The joint Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS) next generation fighter program is&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/dassault-chief-highlights-european-sixth-gen-fighter-could-come-25-years-behind-u-s-and-china" >not expected</a>&nbsp;to produce a fighter for over two decades, with the CEO of French aerospace firm Dassault, Eric Trappier, having elaborated regarding the state of the program: “[The target of] 2040 is already missed, because we already stall, and the discussions of the next phase will surely also be long… so we rather aim for the 2050s.” The aircraft will thus enter service around 20 years behind American and Chinese sixth generation fighters.&nbsp;The lack of modern fighters brings to question whether developing a costly new aircraft carrier will be a worthwhile investment, and whether the French Navy will seek to lobby the Defence Ministry to procure F-35C or even F/A-XX fighters to provide a more viable air wing. This would hardly be unprecedented, with the Navy having previously procured American F-8 fighters during the Cold War, and lobbied for the procurement of the F-18, before the Rafale M was selected for political reasons.&nbsp;</p>
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