French Rafales and Swedish Gripens at Sweden’s Lule\u00e5 airbase.<\/p>\n
The sun has just risen when the silver French air force tanker takes off from southern France bound for northern Sweden.<\/p>\n
France’s April deployment of the Airbus A330 Multi Role Tanker Transport is part of the P\u00e9gase High North mission<\/a> to Sweden’s northernmost air base of Lule\u00e5. It’s\u00a0the third such visit by the French air force this year \u2014 a concrete example<\/a> of Paris pivoting to European defense after decades of focusing mainly on the Indo-Pacific and the Sahel.<\/p>\n It’s also a sign of\u00a0closer cooperation between two of Europe’s defense heavyweights as the continent boosts military spending to counter the threat from Russia, amid questions over the U.S. commitment to Europe’s security under President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n “We’re showing that we’re capable of operating across Europe in half a day,” said General Patrice Hugret, the head of the French mission.<\/p>\n Sweden and Finland joining NATO \u2014 a break from decades of neutrality triggered by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 \u2014 is putting more focus on the Arctic as the region becomes a<\/a> growing source of tension for NATO, Russia\u00a0and even China.<\/p>\n That makes the Swedish base a “sweet spot … to protect the border in the east,” said Colonel Peter Greberg, the commander of Lule\u00e5’s air base. “We’re approximately 600 to 700 kilometers away from the first Russian military base. From a flying perspective, it\u2019s not that far.”<\/p>\n Despite very different geographies \u2014 Sweden is an Arctic nation that shares a maritime border with Russia, while France is on NATO’s southern flank and faces the Mediterranean Sea \u2014\u00a0Paris and Stockholm are surprisingly similar when it comes to defense policy, and they are getting closer.<\/p>\n Both countries share a vision of military self-sufficiency that includes a powerful, wide-ranging defense industry and armed forces able to defend their own territories without much outside help.<\/p>\n “We have been forced to develop a complete set of capabilities for our air force. [Before joining NATO], we could not rely on anyone else,” said the commander of the Swedish air force, Major General Jonas Wikman, standing in front of French Rafale and Swedish Gripen fighter jets on the Lule\u00e5 airbase tarmac.<\/p>\n “That is something we have in common,” echoed General Nicolas Chambaz, who’s in charge of international relations at the French air and space force. “It’s so easy for Sweden and France to work together because we have exactly the same mindset.”<\/p>\n France and Sweden’s military ties stretch back centuries. In 1631, under the Treaty of B\u00e4rwalde, France agreed to provide financial support to help the Nordic nation in the Thirty Years War against Habsburg Austria; Sweden’s royal family is descended from a Napoleonic commander who went rogue.<\/p>\n French President Emmanuel Macron has been working to strengthen those ties, coming for a state visit <\/a>in January 2024. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has been to Paris a couple of times this year, including to take part in a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” of countries allied with Ukraine.<\/p>\n The supreme commander of the Swedish armed forces, General Micael Byd\u00e9n, visited France<\/a> in his first trip abroad after his country joined NATO, while Macron recently appointed the deputy head of the DGA arms procurement agency, Thierry Carlier, as French ambassador to Sweden.<\/p>\n “The geopolitical context only brings us closer together,” said Carlier.<\/p>\n Closer ties don’t mean complete harmony. French and Swedish arms-makers are also fierce rivals, as France’s Dassault and Sweden’s Saab compete for fighter jet contracts in South America. Sweden’s military industrial complex is also more closely tied to the U.S. than France’s.<\/p>\n However, France’s MBDA and Saab also pledged to deepen<\/a> cooperation, and both Paris and Stockholm are in the European Long-Range Strike Approach missile project.<\/p>\n “Partnership with Sweden opens the way to cross-purchasing,” Carlier said. He confirmed<\/a> that France is in talks to procure Saab’s GlobalEye surveillance aircraft to replace its aging Boeing E-3 Sentry AWACS airplanes, and said he hopes both countries will boost cooperation on air defense and the naval sector.<\/p>\nKindred spirits<\/strong><\/h2>\n