At the beginning of 1973, an agreement was created with the French government to finance this programme.
Later, in order to answer a request from the DGAC (Direction Générale de l'Aviation Civile, the French civil aviation authority), Dassault proposed a Mercure equipped with a new engine developed by General Electric/Snecma called the CFM International CFM56; this version came to be known as the Mercure 200.