Caracal Helicopters Strengthens Military Cooperation Between Morocco and France
Morocco's orders of French arms amount to 532.1 million euros in 2025, the highest level since 2016, thanks to the deal of ten H225M Caracal helicopters, in a sign of a strong return to military cooperation between Rabat and Paris.
Official French data reveal that Morocco's orders of French weapons amounted to 532.1 million euros in 2025, the highest level recorded by the Kingdom since the beginning of the statistical series in 2016, in a sign of a strong return to military cooperation between Rabat and Paris. These numbers are within & nb sp;The annual report for the year 2026 on arms exports, published by the French Ministry of Armies on August 12, 2026, the most prominent of which is the supply of ten H225M Caracal helicopters. The Caracal Deal at the Heart of the Deal On November 18, 2025, Airbus Helicopters announced a contract with Morocco to supply the Royal Armed Forces with ten H225M helicopters, after previous media estimates had talked about a wider deal involving 18 units distributed between the Royal Air Force and the Royal Gendarmerie. In June 2026, France delivered the last batch of Caracal helicopters to its special air and space forces, opening the way for accelerated delivery of the Moroccan order. From 13 million to more than half a billion euros Morocco's orders of French arms jumped from just 13.1 million euros in 2024 to 532.1 million euros in 2025, representing the largest share of North African orders from France during that year. This figure brings the total Moroccan orders of French arms between 2016 and 2025 to 1.325 billion euros. This military rapprochement is not born of the moment, as the Joint Armaments Committee between Morocco and France was established in July 2024, before it culminated in the state visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Morocco between October 28 and 30, 2024. President Macron and the head of the French arms delegation at the time, Emmanuel Shiva, along with Airbus Helicopters CEO Bruno Even, supervised the support of this cooperation. A Moroccan industrial horizon? The agreement opens the door to a discussion on the possibility of establishing a maintenance, repair and renovation center in Morocco, which could turn into a regional pole serving the West African region, which may enhance the Kingdom's position as a regional military industrial actor. This deal confirms, according to French official data, that Morocco became France's first military partner in North Africa in 2025, at a time when Rabat is seeking to diversify the sources of arming its army and modernizing its equipment.