A great image from 35 years ago, circa 1989: Armée de l’air (French Air Force) SEPECAT Jaguar of Escadron de Chasse 1/7 Provence (EC 1/7) over Saint-Dizier-Robinson Air Base, including two in their standard European camo and one in the French camouflé Afrique.
Michel Riehl/ECPAD/Défense Réf. : DIA 90 311 03
A British-French project, Paris ordered 200 Jags (160 single seat, 40 double seat) in 1972 to replace older strike aircraft– typically Dassault Mystère IVs– and the first examples were delivered soon after.
While their primary mission was seen as being counter-Warsaw Pact invasion if the Fulda Gap ever got crowded or in strategic deterrent (EC 1/7 only downshifted from its nuclear strike role in 1991), the French made excellent use of the aircraft in the sandbox, with detachments of EC 1/7 Jags deployed to Mauritania in Opération Lamantin in 1977, Chad from 1978-1986 in Opération Tacaud /Manta– the latter key to the defeat of the Libyan forces during the Toyota Wars. Then came Opération Daguet (Desert Sheild/Storm) where they made short work of Iraqi depots and columns.
Jags were so often sent overseas on deployments across Africa and the Middle East that for a period it was joked that Paris practiced “Jaguar diplomacy” (la diplomatie du Jaguar).
Withdrawn from French service in 2005, fittingly, the Jaguar placed on display in 2023 at the Musee Air et Espace, A91, is in camouflé Afrique tan and had served with EC 1/7 in Chad and Iraq, surviving an Iraqi SAM during the raid on Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base, Kuwait, in 1991.
Today, EC 1/7 operates Dassault Rafale B and C models, which were received in 2006.
Fittingly, their first overseas deployment was to the high deserts of Tajikistan’s Dushanbe airbase in 2007, from where they were used in strikes over Afghanistan. They have also deployed to Al Dhafra in the UAE and other places in the region since then.
Perhaps it is now la diplomatie du Rafale?