The pace of consolidation within Europe's aerospace sector has accelerated. Jean-Paul Bechat, president of the French aerospace industries association (Gifas), talks with Ian Verchere.
Racal.
The industrial landscape has been hugely changed since the last Farnborough.
Q What effects are these changes having on French perceptions of the future? We sometimes sense a certain resistance in France to integration with foreign companies.
A Maybe it has been the case I won't argue about that. But it seems to me that today these perceptions no longer hold up. Astrium is a fruitfully European company, Matra-BAE Dynamics for missiles is European; Thomson has a lot of international interests in places like the UK and Netherlands. Airbus is celebrating its transformation into a single corporate entity. So it is difficult to talk of French rejection of European joint ventures. In my own company Snecma we were very happy to create Messier-Dowty in 1995 ahead of the recent big mergers. This was due to the fact that Messier-Dowty is more commercial while defence is a place where nationalism tends to be more defined.
Q Yes, but the French Air Force is hardly going to be armed with US fighters, n'est ce pas?
A Generally defence programmes are financed by taxpayers' money. And it is the preferred choice of all countries including the USA to use such money to create jobs. The prerequisite to this, of course, is the availability of a suitable local product. With Dassault, we cannot complain about the efficiency of the product. The product is good, the employees are French tax-payers. It's a perfect circle.
Q As president of Gifas, what tasks do you still see ahead for the re-arrangement of France's aerospace industries?
A The main task is the integration of all these projects. We all know that, even if you merge two companies, the work is not finished. It's just the start. Big companies like Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas or Lockheed-Martin have experienced difficulty in integrating all the acquisitions they have made. In France, Thomson-CSF and EADS have tremendous work still to do. I'm sure they will succeed because these changes have been preceded by decades of co-operation. Of course, a few segments like engines and equipment are not yet fully consolidated. This has been achieved at a national level in France but more needs to be done at a European level.
Q Much has happened in the French and European aerospace sectors over the past year. Can you give us your tour d'horizon and the impact these developments are having or are expected to have?
A Huge progress has been made since the St Malo Declaration by prime ministers Jospin and Blair and a similar exhortation at the Potsdam Summit in December 1998. All these political declarations have opened the way for European defence consolidation. Since then we have seen Thomson-CSF and Dassault Electronique merging for radar and electronic warfare; we've seen British Aerospace and GEC-Marconi merging; we have seen the creation of European Aeronautic and Defence Systems (EADS); and, more recently, we've seen the creation of Thomson-CSF and Racal. The industrial landscape has been hugely changed since the last Farnborough.
Q What effects are these changes having on French perceptions of the future? We sometimes sense a certain resistance in France to integration with foreign companies.
A Maybe it has been the case I won't argue about that. But it seems to me that today these perceptions no longer hold up. Astrium is a fruitfully European company, Matra-BAE Dynamics for missiles is European; Thomson has a lot of international interests in places like the UK and Netherlands. Airbus is celebrating its transformation into a single corporate entity. So it is difficult to talk of French rejection of European joint ventures. In my own company Snecma we were very happy to create Messier-Dowty in 1995 ahead of the recent big mergers. This was due to the fact that Messier-Dowty is more commercial while defence is a place where nationalism tends to be more defined.
Q Yes, but the French Air Force is hardly going to be armed with US fighters, n'est ce pas?
A Generally defence programmes are financed by taxpayers' money. And it is the preferred choice of all countries including the USA to use such money to create jobs. The prerequisite to this, of course, is the availability of a suitable local product. With Dassault, we cannot complain about the efficiency of the product. The product is good, the employees are French tax-payers. It's a perfect circle.
Q As president of Gifas, what tasks do you still see ahead for the re-arrangement of France's aerospace industries?
A The main task is the integration of all these projects. We all know that, even if you merge two companies, the work is not finished. It's just the start. Big companies like Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas or Lockheed-Martin have experienced difficulty in integrating all the acquisitions they have made. In France, Thomson-CSF and EADS have tremendous work still to do. I'm sure they will succeed because these changes have been preceded by decades of co-operation. Of course, a few segments like engines and equipment are not yet fully consolidated. This has been achieved at a national level in France but more needs to be done at a European level.
Source: Flight Daily News
