The sound at the DGA test center in Saclay on a gray morning doesn’t just fill the air; it also chews it. A prototype fighter jet engine screams behind reinforced glass, and flames lick the exhaust tunnel. A small group of engineers stares at a bunch of flickering green curves on their screens. One of them smiles because the numbers are steady, the vibration is low, and the temperature is just right. A visitor from Paris says, “No one else in Europe can do this,” half proud and half teasing.
Outside the hangar, things are a lot less peaceful. Defense officials in Brussels, Berlin, and Rome are sending each other angry messages. People say that France is keeping the best toys for itself and hiding its know-how and budgets inside the DGA, its powerful arms procurement agency.
A monopoly on engines. A cloud of mystery. And a lot of tight jaws.
France’s pride in its engines meets Europe’s growing anger
People at the French defense ministry talk about fighter jet engines like they are family heirlooms. The DGA has tested and approved Safran’s high-precision powerplants, which are considered the best in Europe. The message, which is sometimes whispered and sometimes shouted, is clear: France is at the top of the list when it comes to cutting-edge fighter engines in Europe and wants to stay there.
The problem is that the rest of the continent no longer finds this charming. Now that there are billion-euro future programs on the table and everyone wants a real seat instead of a folding chair, it’s even more important.
The Future Combat Air System is an ambitious “fighter of tomorrow” program that France, Germany, and Spain all work on together. In theory, it’s a big European project. It sounds more like a tug-of-war in meetings. German businesses keep asking for more access to engine technology, more information about tests, and more input on design decisions. French negotiators smile politely and draw red lines in response.
The DGA is in charge of test benches, secret budgets, and long-term plans. There are blacked-out paragraphs in documents, and technical annexes disappear into classified annexes. We’ve all been there: you thought you were going to work together, but it turns out you’re just going to hire someone else to do the work.
For Paris, the answer is clear: engines are important. It took decades, wars, and billions of dollars to learn how to make a hot section blade that can handle hellish temperatures or calibrate digital controls so that a jet stays whisper-smooth at Mach 1.8. It feels like tearing out the country’s industrial spine to give that away.
The story is different for Berlin, Madrid, or Rome. They see huge programs that are paid for by European taxpayers, but a tech core that is stuck behind French walls. They also worry that this imbalance will affect future deals for planes, exports, and maintenance contracts. *As France strengthens its engine monopoly, more and more people wonder if they are paying for their own dependence.
What France does to stay in charge inside the DGA’s black box
You need to picture how the DGA works to understand why people are so angry right now. The agency doesn’t just check designs; it also guides them. It works with Safran on secret research, gives out “study credits” in hard-to-find budget lines, and plans engine test campaigns that even some partner countries only find out about after they happen.
Engine programs are broken up into small work packages with neutral names. These packages are often hidden in bigger “propulsion studies” that don’t get much attention in public budget debates. In this thick forest of acronyms, one thing is clear: France is where the brains and hearts of high-precision engines are.
This is where the stress gets very real for engineers all over Europe. Off the record, German propulsion experts say they are stuck doing side jobs like making casings, working on some software, and doing a little bit of integration. Italian teams say they get invited late, when the main decisions have already been made. Officials in Spain say that one day their air force will fly jets with engines they don’t fully understand or control.
To be honest, no one really reads every technical annex or follows every line of a defense budget that spans several years. The DGA knows this and works behind the scenes where people can’t see them. The end result feels like a carefully planned dependency, not a happy accident.
French officials say that the “black box” is partly for safety. Fighter engines are very sensitive; even small mistakes can cause them to fail completely or leave them open to attack by hostile states. Some of the secret programs are meant to make digital systems more resistant to cyberattacks, improve stealth signatures, or make them last longer under a lot of stress.
Critics say that being secretive has become a habit instead of a need. They say that sharing more with trusted European partners would lower costs, speed up innovation, and lower the chance that everyone will start their own competing programs out of frustration. **A propulsion cold war is the last thing anyone needs on a continent that is already having trouble getting tanks, missiles, and planes to work together.**
How this French monopoly changes the future of Europe’s defense
There’s a very real side to this story: who will teach the next generation of engine builders? The DGA and Safran also keep the most interesting jobs in France by keeping the most sensitive design and testing there. Young German or Italian engineers are stuck in support roles, far from the action, and their career paths are limited by their nationality instead of their skills.
That makes a quiet, structural imbalance over time. France doesn’t just have the know-how for today’s engines; it also decides who learns the tricks for tomorrow’s engines.
For European defense planners, the risk is a downward spiral. When partners feel left out, they start to suggest other projects, like national demonstrations, rival engine studies, and hybrid civil-military programs to improve skills at home. Money runs out, political patience runs out even faster, and projects that are supposed to be shared fall apart.
Some high-ranking people in Brussels are worried that the past will happen again: separate fighter families, logistics that don’t work together, and higher unit costs for everyone. They don’t think France’s stubborn hold on engines is smart industrial policy; they think it’s a reason for fragmentation.
Some people in France are starting to say it out loud: the monopoly might not work out. If Germany or other countries stop believing in shared engines, they could work with the UK or the US to make their own engines. Export buyers might then have a hard time deciding between jets that are locked into a single national engine monopoly and planes that are built on a wider, more balanced industrial base.
A former European defense official told me, “Europe can’t preach strategic autonomy while structuring its flagship fighter programs around the secrets of a single state.” “At some point, the math of politics stops working, no matter how well the engineering is done.”
French engine monopoly: puts all the best knowledge and jobs in one country.
DGA secrecy makes partners suspicious and leads to accusations of hidden agendas.
Future programs: if Germany, Italy, or Spain go their own way, there is a risk of fragmentation.
Taxpayer stakes: billions put in, but not everyone can use the technology that comes from it.
Strategic choice: either accept the imbalance or come up with a new way for Europe to share its crown jewels.
A delicate balance between privacy, independence, and shared power
When you look at the spreadsheets, you can almost feel something emotional happening. France looks at its engines and sees a rare area where it can still compete with the US and the UK, and even move ahead on some technologies. It feels like taking away a part of the backbone of the country when you give it up or even water it down.
Some Europeans see the same engines and think of older hierarchies, where big states are in charge and everyone else follows, even though everyone has the same money and takes the same risks.
One message or one change to the treaty won’t end the debate over the DGA’s secret programs. It makes us ask tough questions about how much secrecy a democracy can handle in the name of safety. How much control can a partner tolerate for the sake of working together? And how many times Europe can mess up a project that everyone is working on before they all decide it’s safer to do it alone.
Some people say that the only way to move forward is to be uncomfortable honest: let more Europeans into French test cells, share roadmaps earlier, and really work together on propulsion. Some people are afraid that even a small opening will cause the crown jewels to fall out.
At the end of the day, this isn’t just about thrust curves, metal, or turbines. When the stakes are high, it’s all about trust, timing, and the quiet politics of who gets to decide what “European” really means. The engines roaring in those DGA hangars may have been designed in France, but the echoes of their monopoly will affect the future of the whole continent. It’s still very much up in the air whether that future will sound like a chorus or a cacophony.
Main point: Detail: Value for the reader:
French engine monopolySafran and the DGA have the most advanced fighter jet engine knowledge in Europe.Helps readers understand why France is at the center of current defense debates
DGA secrecyPartners can’t get to tests and data because of secret programs and unclear budgets.Explains why Germans, Italians, and Spaniards are upset
The future of defense in EuropeIf the imbalance isn’t fixed, there is a chance that programs will become fragmented.Shows how this technical disagreement could affect taxpayers, exports, and security.
Questions and Answers:
Is France really the only European country that makes the best fighter engines?
France is the only EU country that has a fully independent, combat-tested high-performance fighter engine ecosystem, from design to testing to export support.
What part does the DGA play in this monopoly?
The DGA guides research, pays for secret programs, runs important test centers, and sets the technical standards that keep high-end propulsion work in France.
What is making Germany, Spain, and Italy so angry?
They put a lot of money into joint projects, but they don’t feel like they have a lot of knowledge about engines, so they have to rely on French decisions for future aircraft.
Could Europe make a shared engine that isn’t French?
Yes, technically, but it would take a lot of money, time, and a political decision to change the way things are done in the industry and the balance of power.
What do regular people have to lose?
She could smell the dishwater even before she opened the washing machine. A sad pile of kitchen towels and tea towels, which were said to be “clean,” sat in a damp knot, looking grey and tired. The happy lemons on one towel had faded to a sort of beige. The one with blue stripes and white? It smells more like dishwater from a week ago. She sighed, got the baking soda out of the cupboard, and stopped what she was doing. She had done this many times. Every wash promised to work miracles. Every wash made it a little less yellow. Not ever bright white. It never looks like the clean, hotel-kitchen look you see on cooking shows and Pinterest. She looked at the clock, then at the pile of dirty dishes, and felt that familiar feeling of giving up. Then a neighbor gave them a strange, old-school tip that changed everything. A tip that doesn’t use baking soda in any way.
Why your kitchen towels turn yellow even when you “wash them right”
When you have guests over, you usually notice the color of your kitchen towels for the first time. Next to a clean sink and polished worktop, that “not so bad” beige looks pretty bad all of a sudden. You use them to rinse plates, pick up hot pans, mop up sauce spills, and wipe up coffee drips. As more and more tiny stains build up, they make a background haze that the eye doesn’t notice until there is a contrast. You wash them, add baking soda, and raise the temperature, but the grey seems to be baked into the cotton. That’s the annoying part: they’re technically clean, but they look tired.
Marie cooks a lot and swears by her tea towels. She had a pile of white cotton towels that she washed at 60°C with a scoop of baking soda, just like everyone says to. The red tomato stains and curry spots had faded after a year. The whole pile, though, looked like it had been through ten winters without any sun. She even tried scented beads and a “magic” washing machine program. What happened? It smells good, but the color is still dark. She knew she had a problem that went beyond just detergent the day she saw that her “white” towel made her stainless steel sink look dirty.
Baking soda doesn’t always work well on whites that are very dirty for a simple reason. Soda is a great way to get rid of smells and make water softer. It can make the detergent work a little better. But grease, oxidized food stains, and washing clothes in cold water over and over again leave a thin, invisible film on the fibers. This film catches pigments and makes light-colored cotton look dull. If you only add the same thing to the same cycle, you’re mostly just moving dirt around. Your towels are clean, not reset. You need something that breaks this film, lifts old grease, and reopens the fiber to get that real “back to white” look.
Say goodbye to baking soda: the easy way to get tea towels back to white
A little-known trick that people who work in real kitchens share is to soak things in hot water with oxygen bleach and dish soap. Not mystery powder or chlorine. Oxygen bleach, which is made from sodium percarbonate, makes oxygen bubbles when it is put in hot water. Put very hot water (about 60°C) in a bucket or your sink. If your hands can’t take more, that’s fine. Put in one tablespoon of oxygen bleach and a squirt of dish soap that cuts through grease. Stir until everything is mixed together, then add your wet towels and push them down. Soak them for at least two hours, or all night if they are really sad.
People think that the smell of chemicals will be strong and that the color will change right away. What really happens is slower and almost fun to watch. The water turns cloudy and then beige, as if the years of sauce and frying oil are leaking out. Even before you put them in the washing machine, the towels look lighter when you take them out. Then you wash them like you normally would, but without baking soda, on a hot cycle. When they come out, there’s a quiet surprise: the weave looks sharper, the white is clearer, and the colored stripes stand out again. *For once, the promise on the box of the product seems real.
A lot of people mess up this trick without even knowing it. They put too many towels in a small bucket, so there isn’t enough water for the oxygen to work. They say they use lukewarm water “to save energy,” but then they complain about weak results. They don’t use the dish soap, which is the part that really gets rid of the greasy film. Or they wash the towels in cold water before putting them in the machine, which washes away half of the active solution. Let’s be honest: no one really does this every day. The point is not to be perfect. You should do this deep reset once a month or when your whites start to look like old dishcloths on a bad day. You won’t want to throw away your towels as quickly if you do this.
Camille, who runs a small bakery at home, says, “After the first overnight soak, I opened the machine and laughed.” “These were the same towels, but they looked like they belonged in a professional kitchen again.” I realized that I didn’t need more things; I just needed to make the right move at the right time.
Use hot water (about 60°C) to fully activate the oxygen bleach and get it into the fibers.
Let the oxygen bleach sit for at least two hours, and up to overnight for towels that are very yellow.
To get rid of grease and old oil that dulls the cotton, add a squirt of strong dish soap.
Don’t put too many towels in the soak; they should be able to float freely in a lot of water.
After soaking, run a hot wash cycle to get rid of the dirt and other things that came up.
Living with white towels without going crazy about them
Once you’ve seen your towels go from sad grey to almost‑new white, you start noticing all the little gestures that keep them that way. Hanging them up between uses instead of leaving them in a damp ball on the worktop. Rinsing off big tomato splashes under cold water before they dry. Choosing cotton over microfibre for heavy kitchen work, because cotton survives hot cycles better. You don’t have to become a laundry influencer. You just need two or three habits that fit into your real life, not somebody else’s perfect routine.
The bigger question behind that “goodbye baking soda” moment is simple: what else are we doing out of habit that doesn’t actually work anymore? We follow tips we heard from a friend of a friend, or from a viral post, and then wonder why our stuff wears out so fast. When you share this soak trick with someone, you’re not only giving them whiter towels. You’re giving them back the small pleasure of using something that feels properly clean, in a room where so much of daily life happens. Your kitchen becomes a little lighter, a little calmer, without buying anything fancy or changing everything overnight. Sometimes, the reset we need starts with a bucket, hot water, and a towel that finally looks like itself again.
Key point Detail Value for the reader
Hot oxygen‑bleach soak Use sodium percarbonate + very hot water + dish soap before washing Restores whiteness and brightness to tired kitchen towels
Space and time Let towels soak at least 2 hours in plenty of water Maximises the effect without extra products or effort
Simple habits Hang towels, treat fresh stains, favour cotton for hot washes Keeps whites cleaner for longer and reduces textile waste
FAQ:
Question 1Can I use regular chlorine bleach instead of oxygen bleach for this soak?Chlorine works fast but is harsh on fibres, colours and the environment. Oxygen bleach is gentler, safer on coloured stripes, and better for repeated use on kitchen textiles.
Question 2How often should I do this deep soak on my kitchen towels?Once a month is enough for most homes. If you cook and fry a lot, every two weeks keeps whites bright without feeling like a chore.
Question 3Does this method work on coloured towels too?Yes, as long as the colours are colourfast and you use oxygen bleach, not chlorine. Test on a corner if you’re unsure, and avoid very delicate prints.
Question 4What if I don’t have oxygen bleach at home right now?You can still improve things with a hot soak using dish soap and a splash of white vinegar (in a separate rinse). The result won’t be as dramatic, but it already lifts a lot of grease.
Question 5Are my towels “ruined” if they stay slightly yellow after the first try?No. Very old or heavily stained towels sometimes need two or three soaks over a few weeks to fully recover. The fibres didn’t age in one day, they won’t come back in one day either.
how much taxes will cost, how much future fighter jets will cost, and how well Europe can act on its own in a crisis.
