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 Global appetite for the jets has surged as a result of the United
States' diminishing influence in the Arab world along with wider
security concerns over the rise of Islamic State insurgents - which
Paris is more than happy to assuage. Egypt, India and Qatar have all
just signed contracts.
"Good things always come in four," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius
quipped to reporters on the jet taking President Francois Hollande
to the Gulf this week to sign the Qatar deal and make a rare guest
appearance by a Westerner at a regional summit there.
After signing deals worth some 15 billion euros for a total of 84
aircraft, France now has the United Arab Emirates in its sights for
dozens more purchases that are a much-needed boost to jobs at home,
where unemployment is stuck at a high 10 percent.
"Above all, this is good news for the French economy," Hollande said
in Doha of the fruits of his "economic diplomacy" policy, which has
turned Fabius and Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian into France's
top traveling salesmen.
Le Drian predicted at the weekend that recent arms deals could
create up to 30,000 French jobs. This success may account for a
striking lack of domestic criticism so far about the Socialist
government promoting arms sales to entrenched monarchies, many of
whom have patchy human rights records.
 "If we want France to have influence, this is one of the best ways
to get it," Eduardo Rihan-Cypel, a Socialist lawmaker on
parliament's defense committee told Reuters of the sales.
Hollande's conservative predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy deployed the
Rafale to wars in Afghanistan and Libya over the past decade but was
unable to find a single foreign buyer for it. Now, growing security
jitters are unlocking order books.
"We are at war with Islamic State," former Sarkozy minister and
party ally Xavier Bertrand told French TV. "Countries have realized
they have to equip themselves."
SECURITY JITTERS
Once the dominant Western player in the Arab world, the United
States has seen its influence wane following its reluctance to
intervene in Syria, last year's failure to secure a Middle East
peace deal and its readiness to strike a nuclear deal with Iran.
That has left a strategic window for fellow U.N. Security Council
veto-holder France, advocate of a tough line on Tehran and whose
bombers were on the runway ready to fly to Syria in August 2013,
before Barack Obama backed down on Western strikes.
"We naturally have a good defense industry - that plays its part,"
one French diplomat said of a sector which employs some 165,000,
according to government figures.
 "But they (Gulf states) are looking at us now more closely because
we have worked with them closely on a strategic level and that
naturally helps on a commercial level."
Some industry-watchers predicted France's move to suspend its
delivery of Mistral aircraft carriers to Russia in the wake of the
Ukraine conflict would harm its image as a defense supplier. But the
Rafale deals suggest this is not the case.
Saudi Arabia's new Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir told Reuters
that Hollande's invitation to the GCC summit showed the close ties
between Paris and the region, noting a "commonality of views with
regard to the challenges."
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That said, French officials are under no illusion that the star
treatment offered to Hollande during the trip is part of a wider
Gulf game meant in part to send a message to Washington.
"They are going to Camp David on May 14," one senior French official
said of Obama's invitation for talks sent out to Gulf Cooperation
Council countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and
the United Arab Emirates. "They wanted us to come to say to the
Americans 'look, in any case we have France, so make sure you don't
get edged out'."
KEEPING UP WITH DEMAND
Dassault joins Sweden's Saab, manufacturer of the JAS 39 Gripen, in
having assured production well beyond the end of this decade through
a recent breakthrough in exports.
The Eurofighter consortium, from which France's decision to break
away in 1985 led to the independent Rafale project, and Boeing's
F/A-18 E/F and F-15 jets face their factories going dark before the
end of the decade without fresh orders.
Yet both the F-18 and Eurofighter are expected to put up tough
competition for contracts with Kuwait, where the Rafale is seen by
many in the industry as a long shot.
And while Saudi Arabia financed a $3-billion French arms deal for
Lebanon signed last November, French officials concede that Riyadh
is unlikely to wind up its longstanding defense ties with the United
States and Britain any time yet.
The United Arab Emirates publicly rebuffed France's offer to supply
60 Rafale jets in 2011 as "uncompetitive and unworkable".
Moreover some defense analysts say Dassault's success in Qatar could
dampen its chances in the UAE, given the sometimes prickly relations
between the two Gulf states.
But a fighter industry source noted the latest wins gave the Rafale
economies of scale and industrial flexibility which could give it
new momentum in export prospects, including in the UAE, and recent
contacts suggest there are grounds for hope.
Le Drian, architect of the recent successes, met Crown Prince Sheikh
Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyanfor for an hour this weekend to
specifically discuss the sale of the fighter jets.
"Everything went well," two diplomatic sources said, with one noting
that negotiations were already "in an active phase".
However an official close to the talks said the flurry of recent
orders meant Dassault production lines were already under pressure
to meet deadlines, noting: "If they want the plane quickly, they
will have to pay more for it."
(Additional reporting by Marine Pennetier and Tim Hepher in Paris;
writing by Mark John; Editing by Sophie Walker)
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