PÉGASE 2023 ⋆ MAphotoSG

On 25 June, Pégase 2023 was launched by the French Air and Space Force (French: Armée de l’air et de l’espace) from France, with a contingent comprising of ten Dassault Rafale B/Cs, five Airbus A330 MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport) Phénix and four Airbus A400M Atlas, along with 320 personnel and 55 tons of cargo.

A Cooperation Asset

Unfolding in three major phases, the Pégase contingent will be making a total of 11 stopovers in 10 different countries and conduct trainings and exercises with 14 partner air forces. Starting from 25 June, the contingent had a technical stopover at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates before conducting a simultaneous power projection to both Singapore and Malaysia. A total of four Rafale Bs, two Rafale Cs, three A330 MRTTs and three A400Ms landed in Singapore on 26 June, and the remainder to Subang Air Base in Malaysia.

Her Excellency, Ms Minh-Di Tang, French Ambassador to Singapore, welcoming Brigadier General Marc Le Bouil, Chief of Pégase 2023 mission

(Photos by French Embassy in Singapore)

Her Excellency, Ms Minh-Di Tang welcoming the Rafale pilots of Pégase 2023 mission

(Photos by French Embassy in Singapore)

On 27 June, the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) organised a seminar together with the Embassy of France in Singapore and the French Air and Space Force on “Air Operations in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief in the Indo-Pacific”. The Rafales also participated in BFM (Basic Fighter Manoeuvres) exercises with aircraft from the RSAF (Republic of Singapore Air Force). On 28 June, the contingent departed and will move onto the second phase with a two week extensive multinational exercises led by the United States Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) in Guam and Palau from 2 to 21 July.

The final phase of the mission will take place from 24 July to 3 August with simultaneous stopovers and training exercises in South Korea, Japan and Indonesia. The return journey to France will be via Djibouti and Qatar upon mission completion.

In her opening speech at the press conference on 28 June at Paya Lebar Airbase, the French Ambassador to Singapore, Her Excellency, Ms Minh-Di Tang, said, “The Pégase 2023 mission demonstrates the French Armed Forces ability to deploy a powerful air detachment from France to the Indo-Pacific in less than 30 hours. This affirms our credibility as a partner as well as our capacity to defend our overseas territories in the Pacific.”

“The French forces are conducting this important air deployment, including high level trainings with our strategic partners, thus demonstrating France’s full commitment to South East Asia, to its security and to cooperate with Asian partners, in spite of the war in Europe, where Ukraine is fighting against Russia’s invasion with our Allies’ support,” she said.

Her Excellency, Ms Minh-Di Tang delivering her opening speech

Over the last 9 months, the French Armed Forces has deployed five separate missions to Singapore, starting with Pégase 2022 last September, RASTABAN Manoeuvre in January, Mission JEANNE D’ARC in March, FREMM DA Lorraine port call in May and Pégase 2023.

Highlighting this point, Ms Tang said, “This mission represents a unique opportunity to consolidate our exceptional level of interoperability and cooperation with Singapore. Singapore is a key country for the deployment of French Armed Forces, as demonstrated by our latest operations: three major operational deployments in the last six months gave us opportunities for new operational interactions between our forces.”

“The Pégase 2023 mission is all the more meaningful because we are celebrating together this year the 25th anniversary of the presence of the RSAF at Cazaux French Airbase. I personally attended the ceremony in Cazaux on 15 June, a symbol of our bilateral relations which have grown and deepened over the years. More importantly, Singapore’s Minister of Defense Dr Ng Eng Hen and the Chief of Air Force MG (Major-General) Khong graced the event with their presence.”

Brigadier General Marc Le Bouil, Chief of Pégase 2023 mission, French Air and Space Force

In his speech, Chief of Pégase 2023 mission, Brigadier General Marc Le Bouil said, “Pégase 2023 is for us a very important mission because it is in line with the French strategy in the Indo-Pacific. Our first goal for the mission to show our full support and that we can provide our support to our overseas territories. We have more than 1.6 million citizen in these islands (Réunion, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna) and more than 2 million citizens in the Indo-Pacific area. Our second goal is to be able to provide support and to do some operations with our partners in the Indo-Pacific. And to do so, we work on cooperation and interoperability with our partners.”

He also highlighted the three areas of cooperation that will be the focus of the mission. “We have the military cooperation between the air and space forces where we perform some air-to-air refuelling missions, some combined air operations between fighters and some cross servicing between our different aircraft. Second point, we do some roundtables and conferences and the last point in terms of cooperation, I will ask for exchanges in other spheres like think tanks to show our views and to understand the way people in the Indo-Pacific face different challenges.”

On a question of what lessons were learnt in last year’s Pégase 2022 mission that were applied this year, he said, “The main lesson for us is the logistic issue we may have for this kind of deployment, and so one of our training objectives this year is to have a very light footprint to work on.”

Brigadier General Marc Le Bouil explaining the aspects of the Pégase 2023 mission

An important aspect of the training with the United States PACAF was the interoperability between the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and Rafale aircraft. Although this was done in Europe, there is a different challenge in this region with it. “Between Hawaii and Guam we have more than 6000 kilometres, and we can imagine that sometimes the link between those islands can be interrupted. In that case we have to anticipate and have a mission intent, and after that we rely on our units on the ground, on the airfield, to conduct the operations with the same spirit. We have to train on that.”