"The insult Hollande hurled at Vladimir Putin, by refusing to fulfil the deal for the Mistral delivery, has backfired and will cost France billions. But surely [the French president] is a socialist and money means nothing to him," Boulevard Voltaire noted.
The Rafale contract, worth as much as $20 billion, fell through in late July, when India announced that it decided to withdraw its request for the aircraft. New Delhi is currently in talks with Paris to buy only 36 Rafales but the new deal has not been inked yet.
I'm starting to think that the Rafale to India is the "deal of the century" because a century is about what it'll take to sign a contract.
— Gabriele (@Gabriel64869839) 29 июля 2015
"Rafales turned out to be a mirage [which disappeared] in the bottomless well of the stupid decisions of the French government. Its incompetence pushes France into the pit and getting out will take decades," Boulevard Voltaire lamented.
The media outlet called the double fiasco a "political and economic catastrophe" for a country desperately trying to establish itself as a reliable arms dealer. The disaster was primarily caused by the senseless "strategy of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the folly of Hollande's policy in Ukraine," Boulevard Voltaire explained.
In July, former French minister Nadine Morano said that the EU already lost €21 billion due to the food ban and could lose up to €81 billion over time.
Morano named Hollande's senseless policies towards Russia as the cause of the crisis and insisted that the French government should be held accountable for the destruction of the country's agricultural sector.
