French Rafales take on 40-day mission to showcase global combat reach

From September 8 through October 15, France's Armée de l’Air et de l’ Espace, or Air and Space Force, is carrying out what it describes as its most extensive power projection exercise to date, sending combat aircraft and support planes on a 40-day journey spanning the Arctic, the Indo-Pacific and the Near and Middle East.

Known as “Mission Pégase 26,” the exercise will cover more than 40,000 kilometres, cross four oceans and include nine stopovers, as an article by the Austrian Militär Aktuell outlet notes. 

France seeks to demonstrate that it can deploy and sustain air power far beyond its immediate neighbourhood. It is the seventh edition of the mission, which began in 2018 and has been held annually since 2022.

The force taking part consists of four Dassault Rafale fighters in the latest F4 configuration, three Airbus A330 MRTT Phénix multi-role tanker and transport aircraft and two Airbus A400M Atlas military transport planes, with around 300 French service members involved in the operation.

The mission began at Air Force Base 125 in Istres in southern France, while command of the operation is being conducted remotely from the CAPCODA Air Operations Center at the Lyon-Mont-Verdun base. According to the paper in the Austrian defence outlet, the arrangement itself underlines one of the central objectives of the exercise: demonstrating that France can coordinate and sustain a complex air operation over enormous distances without relying entirely on forward bases.

Pégase 26 is intended to project French military power while also testing the ability of the country's forces to operate alongside strategic partners in different parts of the world. Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and India are among the countries involved in the wider cooperation effort, giving the exercise a diplomatic dimension alongside its operational purpose.

The route is particularly significant because it takes French aircraft through several environments that would present very different challenges in a real military operation. Rather than following the more familiar routes toward the Indo-Pacific, the Rafales are travelling north through the Arctic, allowing French crews to gain experience with unfamiliar airspace and extreme weather conditions while developing alternative routes toward Asia and other distant theatres.

In the early stages of the mission, the twin-engined Rafales travelled toward Alaska after flying over Greenland, where an A400M support aircraft capable of operating from an ice runway had been positioned. The flight from Istres to Alaska lasted almost 11 hours, with the fighters receiving five aerial refuellings along the way so they could cover the enormous distance without landing.

Pégase has been held since 2018, but the Arctic route represents a significant departure from previous missions. Mission commander General Julien Sabènè told Associated Press, which accompanied the troops in part of their drill, that “the first time we are heading up north, over Greenland, toward Alaska.”

“It’s important for us that we explore different routes,” he said. “We never know in case we need to go in the Indo-Pacific region, and there are thermals and it’s difficult to go the other way around. That gives us another option, going up north.”

Beyond the practical experience of flying across unfamiliar airspace and operating in widely different temperatures, the mission carries considerable political symbolism at a time when France and other European countries are reassessing their ability to act independently in a changing security environment.

The exercise comes only six months after French President Emmanuel Macron offered to extend France's nuclear umbrella to European partners, as concerns grew in Europe over the reliability of US security commitments under President Donald Trump. France is the only nuclear-armed state in the European Union, and Paris has increasingly argued that European countries need to develop greater responsibility for their own defence.

Some Rafale aircraft can be equipped to carry nuclear-armed missiles and would likely operate alongside the same A330 MRTT tanker aircraft used to support long-distance missions, according to officials. The aircraft participating in Pégase 26, however, are not carrying live weapons.

Instead, the Rafales are equipped with mock conventional armaments designed to add weight and alter the aircraft's aerodynamics, giving pilots a more realistic training environment. Nevertheless, personnel from France's Strategic Air Force, which is responsible for part of the country's nuclear deterrent, are taking part in the mission.

According to the AP, the exercise therefore serves several purposes at once. It allows France to test the logistics of moving fighter aircraft over extraordinary distances, gives crews experience in environments ranging from Arctic conditions to the Indo-Pacific, and provides an opportunity to deepen military cooperation with countries that are becoming increasingly important to French strategy.

The ability to move combat aircraft rapidly between distant theatres could also become increasingly relevant as France and its European partners prepare for a security environment in which military resources are stretched across several regions simultaneously. The ongoing war involving Iran has placed additional demands on US forces in the Middle East, including tanker aircraft that are essential for supporting long-range fighter operations.

By Nazrin Sadigova