Considering that Hawker-Siddeley had a NATO-wide Harrier-production coalition agreement set up with Breguet as the French member, I could easily see that. Perhaps some of our world's Jaguar purchases by France would've gone to Harriers instead. With both the UK and France buying them, I could see Germany and Italy being more interested from the "get-go". I never saw anything about who the other coalition members were, but I'd reckon either Dornier or VFW and I'm thinking AerMacchi might be more amenable in Italy.