With Macron’s State Visit, India-France Partnership Got Fresh Impetus In recent visit by French President Emmanuel Macron several agreements and announcement, including one for a defence industrial roadmap.
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Photo: India’s Prime Minister Narender Modi and France President Emanuel Macron Visited UNESCO World Heritage Site Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, India.
New Delhi: Today, both India and France are seen as headstrong countries that have powerful militaries, nuclear capability, as well as an independent take on world politics. With a long history of pursuing an independent course in world politics , Both India and France deeply admires each other and values their strategic autonomy.
France, for instance, draws much of its lineage from former president Charles de Gaulle, who led the country during the Second World War and founded its Fifth Republic. Meanwhile, in India, the concept of strategic autonomy is often traced to former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘non-aligned’ foreign policy, which stressed on India’s equidistance from the reigning great powers in a bipolar world.
Today, both India and France have leaders who are rewriting new chapters in strategic autonomy.
In recent visit by French President Emmanuel Macron several agreements and announcement , including one for a defence industrial roadmap. These agreements will facilitate joint development and manufacturing of advanced military equipment and another for defence space cooperation. There was an agreement also for joint production of civil helicopters by Tata and Airbus.
With @EmmanuelMacron ’s state visit, #India –#France partnership got fresh impetus!
LIST OF OUTCOMES: State Visit of President of the French Republic to India (#French President was accompanied by a 40-member strong delegation. The delegation includes three Ministers;… https://t.co/wYuY3YeDBS pic.twitter.com/XAMc0k8QWF
— Dr. Shahid Siddiqui (@shahidsiddiqui) January 26, 2024
The new roadmap is also expected to help the Indian and French defence sectors to partner in projects requiring joint designing and production, said foreign secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra at a special media briefing. The focus will be on air, space, maritime, land warfare, robotics and artificial intelligence technology, among other areas. New Delhi and Paris had agreed to pursue the roadmap during Prime Minister Modi’s visit to France in July 2023.
Two sides also agreed on a letter of intent to boost defence space cooperation. The goal, Kwatra said, is to enhance space situational awareness, preventing collisions in space and other activities like earth monitoring and remote sensing. New Space India Ltd (NSIL) also signed an MoU with France’s Arianespace on satellite launch capabilities.
Kwatra also announced that Tata and Airbus are set to establish a final assembly line (FAL) to make H125 helicopters in India. The two firms also hope to export the helicopter to neighbouring countries. Airbus stated that the move was a push forward the “Make in India” campaign.
However, the visit did not see a major announcement on the purchase of Rafale marine aircraft or Scorpene submarines from India. “The visits are not focused on individual transactions,” Kwatra said in response to queries on the status of the deals.
Modi and Macron held talks in Jaipur on bilateral ties and other regional and global issues. The ongoing Red Sea crisis and the Ukraine war also featured in the discussions.
He also confirmed that an agreement was reached on mobility for young professionals and stated that a five-year Schengen visa provision for Indian students completing their Masters in France will be activated.
“The salience of India-France partnership has only grown in today’s complex geopolitical environment and in pursuit, of course, of our national priorities and interests. You would recall that in July last year, the two sides had adopted the Horizon-2047 Roadmap and Indo-Pacific Roadmap, thus laying out a clear long-term vision of partnership, both in bilateral space as also what would be shared priorities globally,” foreign secretary Kwatra stated.
As both countries have a similar approach to the security architecture in the Indo-Pacific, France has always stood by India’s side, silently helping it build the capability to make that claim. In fact, they have been old-timers in promoting bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the region.
External affairs minister S. Jaishankar also met with his counterpart, Stephane Sejourne, during the visit. Macron was accompanied by a 40-member delegation, including three Ministers; Ministers’ of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Culture.
On Friday, President Macron attended India’s 75th Republic Day parade as the chief guest. Macron is the fifth French leader to receive this honour and the fourth consecutive French President to be the chief guest at the celebrations. This was also Macron’s third visit to India, after his previous visits in 2018 and 2023.
Later in the evening, French President Emmanuel Macron also visited the Dargah Nizamuddin Aulia- the almost 700-year-old shrine — the nerve centre of Sufi culture in India and remained there for more than half an hour.
–Dr. M Shahid Siddiqui (PhD), Follow via X (Twitter) @shahidsiddiqui
