My understanding from past reading is that some of what justified this approach is that France is betting very heavily on relying on the Dassault nEUROn, possibly being remotely-controlled by a Rafale that’s hanging back

Yeah, that’s just another highlight of this “cooperation”. The very same company that demands massive concessions for the jet part or else is already involved in developing the drone-side of things when that was Germany’s part of the common project.