No US In NATO? That's Ok. Rafale Calling, Says Emmanuel Macron On X

Emmanuel Macron has a message for the rest of Europe - the Rafale fighter jet is calling.

The French President's quirky X post Friday afternoon featured an Apple iPhone with an incoming call from 'Rafale' and a close-up of the jet arcing over barren and rocky land.

"European friends, you have a call," Macron wrote.

Amusing, yes. But there was a clear message to the rest of Europe - 'we need to strengthen our combined defences and act independently on matters of continental security'.

Macron has sought repeatedly to push the European Union to be self-reliant on defence, driven by concerns like Russia's war in Ukraine and Donald Trump's repeated warning to other NATO members - up your defence contributions to match that of the US, or risk losing the American military umbrella.

European friends, you have a call. pic.twitter.com/VY7gmqPUKZ

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 20, 2025

To that end the 'Rafale calling' X post is a shout-out to Europe to increase collaboration in matters of military hardware and reduce dependence on American imports.

Rafale = 'Independent Europe'?

But why is the Rafale a symbol for this European independence?

Because it is almost entirely built and designed within Europe, in France, and its manufacturing and maintenance represents autonomy from Trump's administration. 

It is a 4.5 generation multirole fighter capable of air superiority and ground attack missions, with a range of munitions, including the Meteor, a beyond visual range air-to-air missile that can target enemy aircraft 150km away, and the SCALP cruise missile that has a range of 300km.

Rafales also have the MICA, a versatile air-to-air missile.

But, as capable as it is, in recent years many European nations have opted for the US' F-35 stealth fighter, a 5th generation aircraft widely seen as one of the most advanced in the world.

In April India signed a deal to buy 26 Navy variants of the Rafale fighter jet (File).

Poland and Finland, for example, chose the F-35. The former bought 32 F-35 Lightning II variants for US$4.6 billion, while Finland is in the process of buying 64 for US$9.4 billion.

Apart from these two, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Romania, Greece, Austria, Czechia, and other European countries also have F-35s parked in their airbases.

All of this is despite the F-35's infamous fragility; a British F-35, for example, has been parked in at Thiruvananthapuram airport for nearly a week because of a "technical snag".

READ | UK Declines Hangar Space Offer To Park Grounded F-35B: Sources

Both the Rafale and the F-35 have seen combat; the former was used by the Indian Air Force during Operation Sindoor, Delhi's military response to the April terror attack in Pahalgam.

To that end, Macron's 'Rafale calling' X post is seen as an 'ad' for EU military independence.

'Massive Common Funding'

In March, ahead of a special summit, Macron called for "massive, common funding... probably hundreds of billions of euros... to define our capacity needs for a common defence".

He said the need to make that shift had become all the more urgent because the US, under Trump's 'America First' foreign policy, was slowly but surely pivoting away from Europe.

"It's quarter to the midnight. As there are doubts over the support of the Americans towards Europe over time, we need to mobilise hundreds of billions of euros... it is Europe's strategic wake-up moment," French daily Le Parisien quoted him as saying.

"We must offer European alternatives to countries accustomed to US equipment... scaling up production of these will lower costs and create a self-sustaining defence network across Europe."

He isn't alone in this; Friedrich Merz, then the incoming German Chancellor, said it was his "absolute priority" to strengthen his nation and Europe to "achieve independence from the US".

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