The "Livre Blanc" 2013 (Defence White Paper) released three months ago, is the last defence reform of our armed forces.
As fragged and feared, additional cuts of personnel (24,000) and reduction of military equipments have been announced, including helicopters, transport and fighter aircraft...
Concerning fighter aircraft: Adla and Marine Nationale will operate 225 fighters (instead of 300), consisting of Rafales (Adla/Marine) and around 50 modernized Mirage 2000D (Adla).
Concerning transport fleet: 12 A-330MRTT tankers (instead of 14) and 50 tactical transport aircraft (instead of 70).
Concerning AEW aircraft: 4 Adla E-3F and 3 Marine E-2C.
As these measures were not enough for our politicians, it seems that two Adla airbases will be closed between BA-102 Dijon, BA-115 Orange and BA-116 Luxeuil. The decision should be taken under the new "Loi de Programmation Militaire 2014-2019" (Military Programmation Law), but Dijon is quite already condemned as it only operates Alphajets of EC2/2, which should be transfered to BA-709 Cognac. In my opinion, the second one should be Orange operating ageing Mirage 2000RDI; permiting one closure in the North, the other one in the South of France.
Wait and see, more details asap!
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