Egypt was the first country outside France to buy the Rafale. Eleven years later, it may be about to become the type’s biggest foreign customer by a wide margin.

On 2 September 2026 the French daily La Tribune reported that Cairo has submitted a formal request to Dassault Aviation for 24 more Rafales. If it turns into a contract, it would be the third Egyptian order for the aircraft and would lift the country’s total to 78 — more Rafales than any export customer has ever taken.

Dassault has declined to comment. That is worth keeping in mind: at this stage the story rests on one French newspaper’s reporting, not on a signed deal.

Why Egypt keeps coming back

The short answer is the F-16. Egypt operates roughly 200 of them, and a significant share date to the 1980s. That is an enormous fleet to keep flying, and an enormous fleet to replace. Buying Rafales in batches of two dozen is one way to chip away at the problem without committing to a single vast programme.

There is a political layer too. France and Egypt have drawn closer in recent years, a relationship underlined by President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Cairo in April 2025. Rafale sales have been a consistent feature of that partnership since the first contract was signed in February 2015.

The timing is also convenient for Dassault. The Rafale’s reputation took a public battering after the India-Pakistan clashes, and a headline order from a returning customer is exactly the kind of vote of confidence that resets a sales narrative.

The two problems: money and factory space

Egypt’s finances are strained, and both previous Rafale contracts leaned on ten-year loans underwritten by the French state. That mechanism has hit friction before. An option for 12 extra aircraft, attached to the original 2015 contract, was cancelled in 2017 after France’s Ministry of Economy and Finance raised concerns.

The second problem is physical. The Rafale assembly line at Merignac is already committed to India, Indonesia and Serbia, on top of the French Air Force’s own modernisation. Dassault has been pushing output upward — 26 aircraft delivered in 2025, 28 expected in 2026 — and chief executive Eric Trappier has said the company is working toward four aircraft a month by 2029, with five possible if orders justify it. He has also noted that it takes roughly three years to turn a production target into actual aircraft rolling out of the hall.

That line explains the queue. Egypt, India, Qatar, Greece and the United Arab Emirates are all working through Mirage 2000 replacement at broadly the same time. Demand is not Dassault’s difficulty. Building fast enough is.

The video below goes inside Rafale manufacturing, which is the practical constraint on every one of these deals.

If the order is signed, Egypt ends up with a front-line fleet spanning French, American and Russian hardware — Rafales, F-16s and MiG-29Ms flying from the same air force. Few countries operate a mix quite that broad, and fewer still by deliberate choice.

Sources: La Tribune via Daily Sabah; Dassault Aviation; Aviation Week; Air Data News.