Sure, they plan to ramp up production. But their original plans never
said
18 aircraft in 8 years, so I have doubts about the current plans to. Can
anyone comment on this?

Production line is ready to assemble about 10 aircrafts a year, but Dassault
respects the gov plan by staging costs (hence the higher costs per
aircraft... : a traditional french budget problem....) : it's only a defense
budget issue.

On this page you can see the deliveries calendar to the French Navy :
http://frenchnavy.free.fr/aircraft/rafale/rafale_fr.htm
("Calendrier des livraisons (1999-2012)")