MGCS tank project not abandoned, France and Germany say

France and Germany said their joint MGCS next-generation battle tank programme remained active, pushing back after France's armed forces chief said Germany had decided to leave the project.

French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin said on Friday that the Main Ground Combat System remained “a current and active project”, speaking alongside German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius in Le Haillan, near Bordeaux, during German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier's visit to France.

Pistorius said he “fully” agreed. “The MGCS project is not finished. It has not been abandoned. Nobody has stopped it,” he said, calling it a flagship project of Franco-German cooperation.

On Thursday, French armed forces chief Fabien Mandon told lawmakers that the two armies had spent several years defining a future battle tank but that “the outcome is not good”. He said Germany had decided to leave the project.

Mandon later issued a statement softening those remarks, saying the programme was delayed but continuing and “remains highly relevant”.

The MGCS programme, launched in 2018, is intended to produce a successor to Germany's Leopard 2 and France's Leclerc tanks around 2040. The comments came after the collapse of the FCAS fighter jet project involving France, Germany and Spain.