France will start selling Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine “by the end of the year”, Emmanuel Macron has said.
The French president made the announcement on the anniversary of D-Day, the start of the allied campaign to retake Europe from Nazi occupation in 1944.
Ukrainian pilots will be trained on French soil for up to six months, he said.
Mr Macron did not specify how many of the fighter jets, which are equipped with two 30mm guns and can travel more than twice the speed of sound, would be delivered.
The Mirage 2000 was first used by the French air force in 1984, and deployed during the 1999 Kosovo War during Nato’s bombing of Yugoslavia.
The 2000-5 version has upgraded radar systems and can carry fuel-drop tanks, which increases its range significantly.
“We are going to launch a new form of co-operation and announce the transfer of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets from France, which will enable Ukraine to protect its soil and its airspace,” Mr Macron said.
“We are in the process of building a coalition with other partners, so I won’t be definitive this evening about the number [of aircraft sold].”
Mr Macron said he would propose to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, that the training of pilots should begin by the end of the summer.
“It normally takes five to six months so that by the end of the year, [Ukraine] can have pilots and aircraft,” he said.
Ukrainian servicemen are also being trained to fly F-16 fighter jets, but there is frustration in Kyiv about the limited number of pilots this will produce.
Joe Biden, the US President, has said its programme cannot accept only more than 12 trainees at a time. Ukraine said this month it had 30 pilots who were ready to start on the programme immediately, Politico reported this week.
At D-Day commemorations on Thursday, Mr Macron declared that war was “coming back to our continent” and criticised “those who want to change borders by force”.
He appeared to be hitting out at Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Mr Macron added: “Let us stand with dignity and look at those who landed here.
“Let us have their courage. Here, the president of Ukraine – your presence here today shows us this in a very forceful way.”
Mr Zelensky was greeted warmly by the French president when he arrived at Omaha Beach, where he was applauded and cheered by the crowd.
At one point, he was embraced by a veteran of the D-Day landings, who pulled Mr Zelensky close to his wheelchair to tell him: “You’ll save all the people. You’re my hero.”
The Ukrainian leader replied: “No, no, you saved Europe. You are our hero.”