French Navy Rafale M fires Meteor air-to-air missilePublished on 25/06/2025
By Xavier Vavasseur
Rafale M firing a Metero missile on 18 June, 2025. French Navy picture.A French Navy (Marine Nationale) Rafale Marine fired a Meteor long range air-to-air missile. The firing, which took place on 18 June, was the first one conducted from an aircraft belonging to an operational airwing: Flottille 11F.
The firing was first announced on social media by French defense minister, Sebastien Lecornu:
A Rafale Marine from the air wing of the Charles de Gaulle successfully conducted a training Meteor missile launch for the first time at the DGA test center in the Landes. Milestone achieved by the Marine Nationale in its operational preparation for high intensity.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1935723669080219847The wasn’t the “first ever” Metero firing by a Rafale M. As reported at the time by Naval News, the first firing took place in February 2019. Contacted by Naval News for more information, a French Navy spokesperson explained:
The 2019 missile firing was known as an “ETO” (Technical and Operational Evaluation). It corresponds to the experimental phase conducted by the Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (CEPA in this case) after the weapons qualification, which allows the development of technical and operational recommendations for the flottilles
It was therefore launched by the CEPA by an experimental pilot in a non-operational scenario.
The launch announced last week is the first one carried out by an operational flottille and by an operational pilot (non-experimental), with operational preparation processes resulting from the preliminary work carried out by the CEPA in 2019.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/06/french-navy-rafale-m-fires-meteor-air-to-air-missile/