Engines -
What, the French telling porkies? Mon Dieu, c'est incroyable!
I don't know how comparable the numbers are, exactly. The C and M Rafales are pretty much identical in size and shape. Also, I know that commonality was pushed quite hard: the goal was to minimize the number of M-unique parts, partly by designing the carrier-related load-paths so that they affected as few parts as possible, but on the other hand they may have told the AF to accept a few extra kilos here and there in the interests of saving money.
(That was the original plan for JSF, too, but I think the execution went over the side in the Great SWAT War.)
JSFFan - AWACS is a great answer for Libya. How well it works anywhere else depends on the distance between the operational area and the nearest friendly base (the further it is, the more aircraft you need to cover 24 hours) and the ability to move AWACS, tankers, maintenance support, force protection &c into that base. It gets very nontrivial very quickly.