UAE Walks Out of €3.5 Billion Funding for Rafale F5 over French ‘No’ to Tech Transfer

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has walked out of a proposal with France to contribute €3.5 billion of €5 billion required to develop the Rafale F5 which is a major upgrade over the current F4.

According to a reports in French media, La Tribune Abu Dhabi wanted technology transfer so that it could mount its own weapons on the Rafale and make changes to its radar and opto-electronics as per its requirements.

However, the deal fell through in December 2025 after Paris denied the UAE’s request for technology transfer leaving France to finance the Rafale F5 alone as no other country among Rafale customers such as India, Egypt and Indonesia has shown interest in teaming with Paris on the Rafale F5 upgrade.

To finance the Rafale F5, the Emiratis wanted to be as closely involved as possible in the development of the French fighter jet’s F5 version. The French, for their part, were not prepared to share the secrets of this development which made the UAE go cool on the project if the were not to receive anything in return.

The Emirati non-funding will put pressure on Dassault Aviation over the development of the SCAF, the European sixth generation fighter project in which it is partnering with Germany and Spain. Differences with Airbus over work share has already strained relationships between the partners to breaking point.

The Rafale F5 is to be a way forward for French fighter to morph into a sixth generation fighter in the future.