French naval yard DCNS and the Egyptian military today signed the contract for the sale of two Mistral-class helicopter carriers.
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He added that France believes the world needs a “strong and stable Egypt”, concluding that “we all have a common enemy – Daesh”, an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.
French President François Hollande announced in September that he had agreed to a sales deal with his Egyptian counterpart despite the significant drop in pricing.
France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls flew into Egypt on Saturday to start a three-country Arab tour aimed at boosting economic ties and for holding talks on the region’s conflicts.
France later scrapped the sale amid disagreement over the crisis in Ukraine. However, the deal signed in 2011 was suspended in September, 2014 and Paris decided not to deliver the warships to Russian Federation over Moscow’s alleged role in the Ukrainian conflict.
The Mistrals shrink Cairo comes with Egypt took over as the first unfamiliar purchasers of France’s Rafale guru plane, accepting transaction 24 in February, in which Paris touted one of the “historic” harmony.
The contract illustrates the rapprochement Paris has had with the regime of former army chief Sisi, who ousted elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and has since cracked down on his supporters and on all opposition.
On Sunday, he is also to meet with Sheikh Ahmad al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, the most prestigious institution in Sunni Islam.
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Valls, accompanied by Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as well as a high-ranking French business delegation, is to travel on to Saudi Arabia late on Monday.
