On the Spot | Fire and Brimstone

A FORCE Report

While seemingly ceremonial, the recent visit of French President Emmanuel Marcon as the chief guest at India’s Republic Day celebrations had two significant messages for Delhi.

Meteor

The geopolitical or ‘global-political’ message was that Paris wanted to further cement the bilateral relationship with Delhi in the Indo-Pacific region. As a major European power, France did not want itself to be subsumed in the US-led Quad comprising two US’ Asian allies (Japan and Australia) besides India. The other message as highlighted in the joint statement was that ‘defence and security partnership has been the cornerstone of the India-France partnership in the Indo-Pacific region.’

While France wants to sell arms to India, the good thing is that it has never applied sanctions or attached conditions on arms sales. Moreover, amongst western nations, France has been most forthcoming in transfer of technology. As part of the disclosed defence roadmap, France will set-up MRO for Rafale engines in India and the Indian DRDO will conclude an MoU with French Directorate General of Armament (DGA) at an early date.

Left unsaid during the visit was the impending purchase of French Rafale-M (Marine) aircraft for Indian Navy’s two aircraft carriers. In December 2023, on India’s asking, France has submitted a letter of acceptance providing details of its offer for 26 Rafale-M aircraft. These aircraft will eventually join the 36 Rafale already in service with the Indian Air Force making India the first foreign nation to operate both versions of the aircraft.

The Rafale-M can carry out a variety of missions like air superiority, interdiction, air-to-ground strikes, close air support, reconnaissance and buddy refuelling. And the European consortium, in which France has a stake, MBDA, is the ideal OEM to provide the arms package for both versions of Rafale. The first MBDA India office representative, Loic Piedevache explained the company’s strengths to FORCE in February 2010 in these words: ‘Our strengths are close relations with India, our advanced technologies, our proven skills to work with partners in both the public and private sectors. In addition, MBDA products have an advantage in that they are developed with specific user requirements in mind and not general global operational needs.’

MDBA’s association with the Indian armed forces started in the Eighties with the Milan anti-tank guided missile programme. While the Milan 2T (with tandem warhead and range of 1,850 meters) was delivered to the Indian Army in 2010, the OEM’s involvement with the IAF is with the Jaguar, Mirage-2000 and Rafale aircraft. MBDA’s MICA missile was operationalized on Mirage-2000 in 2010 and in 2016, the newly inducted Rafale were armed with MICA, Meteor, Scalp and Exocet AM39 missiles. Meanwhile, in 2006 Mistral ATAM was integrated with Rudra helicopter and in 2015, it became part of Prachand (Light Combat Helicopter) too. In 2005, MDBA’s Exocet SM39 missile was integrated with Scorpene class of submarines.

Against this backdrop, FORCE was invited as part of a media group by MBDA to visit its sites in Bolton (UK), and Selles-Saint-Denis and Borgues (France) in November 2023. MBDA opened the Bolton high tech manufacturing