Boris Pistorius and Catherine Vautrin said on Friday 9 October at Le Haillan near Bordeaux that MGCS is not over, though neither said whether a single common tank would still be built.
Fabien Mandon told the National Assembly on 8 October that Germany had decided to leave the project, and a communiqué issued shortly before midnight described the programme as delayed but continuing.
The Leclerc tank is due to be phased out from 2038, Mandon wants France to start studies in 2027, and the successor tank was expected around 2040.
Armin Papperger told Welt am Sonntag that Paris had considered cutting its contribution to less than half of the originally planned budget.
On Thursday 8 October, General Fabien Mandon, chief of the French armed forces' general staff, told a National Assembly defence committee hearing on the 2027 armed forces budget that Germany had decided to leave the project. He said the result was not good for industry, but that it was not a complete failure, because the two armies had worked together for several years on what a future tank should be. The remark followed the failure of the FCAS fighter jet programme, announced in June. According to BFMTV, Mandon spoke to a nearly empty room.
“This is not a complete failure, it is an important German choice.”
Hours later, Mandon issued a communiqué that reframed the decision. According to BFMTV, it came shortly before midnight and described a "delay" rather than a German exit, with service entry pushed toward the end of the 2040s. The statement said the programme "is continuing" and keeps an interest focused on enhanced connectivity, collaborative combat, automation and robotisation. The sequence of statements is set out in the timeline below.
On Friday 9 October, the two defence ministers spoke during a company visit at Le Haillan near Bordeaux. Pistorius called the project "completely unthreatened" and insisted it had not ended. Vautrin said MGCS "remains a current project" and agreed with her German counterpart.
“The MGCS project is not over, it is not dead, nobody has ended it.”
Neither minister said whether a single common tank would still be built as first planned, or whether the programme would only link a German and a French model within one combat system. The second option would be a much reduced version of the plan, and FCAS had been cut back in a similar way this summer, to networking separate weapons systems. The general staff said both countries would design their own successors to the Leopard 2 and Leclerc tanks in the meantime. Germany has chosen to launch a national study for a Leopard 2 successor, and France has chosen to launch an intermediate capability. The Leclerc is due to be phased out from 2038, which is why Mandon wants France to begin studies in 2027.
MGCS is meant to succeed the Leclerc and Leopard 2 around 2040, with costs shared equally by Paris and Berlin and German leadership. The programme was originally run by KNDS, a company formed from France's Nexter and Germany's KMW. Berlin's push to bring in Rheinmetall in 2019 unsettled that balance and added to the tensions. Mandon also said the industrial offer presented in early 2026 did not meet the timing needed to replace the current tanks. In an interview with Welt am Sonntag, Rheinmetall chief executive Armin Papperger publicly raised the possibility of a French exit, saying Paris had considered cutting its financial contribution to less than half of the originally planned budget.
Paul Maurice, secretary general of the Franco-German relations study committee at the Ifri, told BFMTV that the programme is over in its initial form, though some collaboration may still be possible on certain segments.
“It is over in its initial form.”
He also said the Germans need France less than the reverse, since they have the expertise and the financing, while France faces political and public finance problems. According to BFMTV, the timing of the announcement also drew attention during a state visit to France by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
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Defence ministers Boris Pistorius and Catherine Vautrin said on Friday that the Main Ground Combat System is not dead, a day after France's chief of defence staff said Germany had decided to quit it.
AI text based on reports by Wirtschafts Woche, SudOuest.fr, Franceinfo and other publishers. Changed .