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In India, Jean-Yves Le Drian completes a visit to push France's "Indo-Pacific" strategy
The Foreign Minister spent four days between New Delhi and Bengalore from 12 to 15 April, against the backdrop of shared fears about Chinese expansionism.
By Guillaume Delacroix(Mumbai, correspondence), Sophie Landrin(New Delhi, correspondent) and Elise Vincent
It was a relatively discreet visit, without a press conference, but with important issues at stake in terms of diplomacy and defence, which was to end in India on Thursday 15 April for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian. This trip was tied to the Raisina Dialogue, an annual regional diplomacy meeting under the auspices of New Delhi. And this, while France has long sought to strengthen its foothold in India, in order to protect its interests from Chinese appetites in the Indo-Pacific area.
The main objective for Paris was thus to display for the first time a trilateral dialogue, at a ministerial level, between France, India and Australia. While Paris has had intensive exchanges with these two countries for years, notably in the framework of "strategic partnerships", this meeting was intended to be one more brick in the anchoring of a Paris-New Delhi-Canberra axis in the face of the vice of Sino-American tensions. France is particularly concerned that its millions of square kilometres of exclusive economic zone, held as part of its overseas territories, may one day be at risk.
Beyond this display, Mr Le Drian's visit was closely linked to French economic interests on the subcontinent. In particular, the possible sale of additional Rafale aircraft, of which India has already purchased 36 from Dassault Aviation in 2016 for nearly 8 billion euros. New Delhi had initially considered buying more than 120 of them, but backed off after the political changeover in India in 2014. Since 2018, new tenders have been launched with potentially more than 150 aircraft at stake. Dassault is back in the running, but the sale is not looking good.
Rafale and bribes
While the Indian army has strongly reorganized in 2020, the relevance of the Rafale purchase is the subject of divergences within the military. New Delhi has also suffered from the Covid-19 health crisis and the state coffers are empty. Finally, very concerned about its "strategic autonomy" in terms of defence, India has developed since 2014 a policy of "Make in India", recently tightened. A situation that complicates the already traditionally long and bitter negotiations for arms contracts.
This situation was also marred in early April by a series of articles from Mediapart, questioning the integrity of the 2016 Rafale contract. According to the investigative website, Dassault Aviation and its partner Thales would have paid millions of euros to an Indian intermediary, Sushen Gupta, to conclude this sale to the army framed by an intergovernmental agreement signed by Mr. Le Drian, then Minister of Defence under François Hollande. This intermediary would have redistributed part of the money in bribes to Indian officials.
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