Boeing humilié : la France choisit l'avion radar suédois pour 1,3 milliard de dollars

Boeing humiliated: France chooses the Swedish radar aircraft for $1.3 billion. For 35 years, four Boeing E-3F Sentry aircraft were the eyes of the French Air Force in the skies, flying over the Gulf War in 1991, Kosovo in 1999, Libya in 2011, Mali during Operation Barkhane, and Syria as part of Operation Chammal, from Avord Air Base 702 in the heart of the Cher department. But in 2026, after the humiliation of AUKUS in September 2021, the American scuttling of the E-7 Wedgetail program in June 2025, and the gradual retirement of the aging Sentry fleet, France made a historic decision. On December 30, 2025, the French Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) signed a firm contract with the Swedish manufacturer Saab for the acquisition of four GlobalEye aircraft, for a total of $1.3 billion, or 12.3 billion Swedish kronor. This decision humiliated Boeing, upset Dassault Aviation and its CEO Éric Trappier, who had passionately championed the Falcon 10X's candidacy before the French National Assembly in April 2025, and cemented the new strategic alliance between Paris and Stockholm. Discover the complete story of this major European shift, from the first GlobalEye tests at Mont-de-Marsan in April 2024 to the official confirmation of the purchase of the four aircraft by the Minister of the Armed Forces, Catherine Vautrin, in the updated military programming law of April 9, 2026. Delve into the behind-the-scenes rivalry between the Boeing E-7 Wedgetail, Dassault Falcon 10X, and Saab GlobalEye, and understand why the Swedish Erieye ER radar, with its gallium nitride technology, has definitively rendered the old American AN/APY-2 radar from the 1970s obsolete. Music used in this video: Eyes of Glory - Aakash Gandhi, Duty Calls - Rod Kim. Photos and archival images from archive.org; content in the public domain.