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France issues urgent request in light of Leclerc emergency

By J A C Lewis

11/30/2007

France has issued an urgent call to the land armaments group Nexter to manufacture new spare parts for its Leclerc main battle tank because the French Army's stocks of spares have fallen to dangerously low levels.

Defence ministry aides in Paris said an emergency contract had been awarded to state-owned Nexter - formerly GIAT - to produce fresh spares for the army's current inventory of 355 Leclercs and 20 recovery vehicles. The value of the contract was not divulged.

Army officials said the availability rate of Leclerc had fallen to 40 per cent and that maintenance costs for the 56-ton MBT accounted for a quarter of the army's EUR550 million (USD810 million) maintenance budget in 2007.

The defence ministry officials gave no indication of how many Leclercs were immobilised due to lack of spares. 133 of 366 words

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