Yes and no. It is a bit more subtle than that. SNECMA finally got their heads out of their rear ends circa 1970 - first with TF306E & M53, then with... CFM56. Clever trick from René Ravaud: getting F101 tech via a civilian turbofan. It helped a lot.
My understanding is that SNECMA weakness was in the "hot" part of engines (whatever you call that in english).
Getting out of Atar was step 1. M53 solved that at least but pre -P2 variants of the 70's still sucked. (M53-2, 8200 kg of thrust: M53-5, 8500 kg of thrust).
Getting a more powerful M53 was step 2. M53-P2 solved that in the early 80's: 9700 kg of thrust, huge gain all too necessary for export and strike 2000s (2000N and 2000D).
Step 3 was getting a fully up to date engine, M53 was merely a "leaky turbojet". M88 solved that via a little help from F101 through CFM56.
But it ran straight into RR RB199 & EJ200 and resulted in the Rafale / Typhoon split (along with nuclear strike and naval requirements).
M88 was a bit of an oddity as it was a bit less powerful than M53, but its a red herring, because HORNET.
F404 being less powerful than F100 is not a shock to anybody. M88 and M53 are similar.
The M88 could grow as powerful as a M53-P2 and beyond 9 mt of thrust, it is just that this growth was never funded, not even today. Maybe someday.
And growing to 12 mt of thrust is not possible, because (once again) Hornet F404 / 414. Not F-15 / F110-129.
Trying to force SNECMA to built a 12 mt engine would have resulted in a F401 or TF30 epic scale disaster. They tried many times (Super Atar, Vulcain in the 50's) but went nowhere.
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The Rafale couldn't be single-engine because it had the last F1s (1992) and the 2000-5 (1997-2007) on its heels.
Also the Hornet (and MiG-29, for that regard) showed that twin-jets could be affordable if small turbofans allowed them to shrink in size... and cost.
Case in point: Australia and Canada would have been "rich" enough to afford F-15s yet went for Hornets because it had 75% of capabilities at half the cost and maintenance.
If you want a twin jet able to loft AIM-7 Sparrows, why bother with F-15s when Hornets offers mostly similar basic capability ? What's more, it was more agile and a smaller radar target.
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The usual issue with twin-jet French aircraft was
- Phantom: unaffordable for the AdA (Mirage IVC, 1958)
- F-111 or even Tornado: unaffordable (AFVG and G4 and G8, in the late 60's)
- F-15: unaffordable (ACF and 4000, 1970's)
So how was Rafale affordable then ? F-18 or MiG-29 style... can only happens with smaller engines. In the USA it started with J101 / F404 BUT the British had "small military turbofans" long, long before them... Adour, cough, M45, cough. Shared with Turboméca and SNECMA, respectively. But on the "wrong" airframes: Jaguar and AFVG.
Now imagine, had Sud Aviation been allowed to build F-5As under licence, and then created their own derivative with Adour first, then M45... how do you say Hornet in French ? Frelon. Bad luck, a chopper already stolen that name.
Back to single-engine Rafale: Mirage 2000 is already in the place. Even more the 2000-5 family.
OTL Dassault screwed the 2000 in... the mid-2000s (ha ha) because Rafale didn't sold until a decade later, Egypt 2015.
Last Mirage 2000 airframe was in 2007, for the Greeks.
