French warplanes and helicopters may be battling jihadists in the deserts of Africa and the Middle East, but the French Air Force on the whole is in a disastrous state, with 56 per cent of all its aircraft unfit to fly at any given moment, according to a senior minister.

“If I compare the current situation … of our planes with a car, it is as if I wanted to have a car every morning that works, I would have to own four cars,” Florence Parly, the armed forces minister, said during a visit to an air base in Evreux in Normandy.

She made the remark in a scathing speech about the state of the French fleet, where aircraft availability has gone from bad to worse despite a 25 per cent boost to the maintenance budget over the past five years that brought the total to €4 billion (£3.5 billion) in 2017.

Ms Parly went to Evreux last week to announce wide-ranging plans to cut soaring costs and free up more aircraft by streamlining the current maintenance programme, which is so complex that it can take 30 different contracts to get a helicopter repaired.

Britain’s Royal Air Force, whose aircraft have been in constant use for many years in Afghanistan and Iraq, was criticised earlier this year when it was revealed that on average one in three of its multi-role Typhoon fighters and Tornado combat jets was unfit to fly.