Always a messy business collaborating with another country (especially the French) as both sides want to protect their industry and their key technical skill. Work share and double production lines etc etc always pushes up costs and complexity and then you have political interference from two governments.
I think there was a case study done somewhere that collaborative project always cost more and take longer than a unilateral project but no single government (except US, Russia and China) can afford to go it alone these days.