France May Finally Get a Foreign Sale of Its Rafale

It looks like Libya is seriously considering the Rafale.

This is important to the French industry. The marketing of the Rafale has been abysmal. Previous French fighter aircraft, the various Mirage series aircraft, have been at the bottom of the market of their generation.

The planes have been smaller and lighter than most, if not all, its competitors (the Mirage did signifantly outperform the F-5 though).

The Rafale is a midsized aircraft, and so the nations considering it, and the capabilities that they require, are significantly different.

For this upcoming generation of aircraft, the Gripen is probably closest to staking out the role of the Mirage in the market.