The Western press writes about France's desire to become the main supplier of weapons to India instead of Russia
The current military-political situation in the world provides France with an excellent opportunity to win weapons the market of the countries of the Indo-Pacific region and, first of all, India. Politico writes about this, analyzing the recently sharply increased interest of Paris in India.
Tomorrow, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu will leave for India on an official visit. He is set to hold talks with the Indian leadership ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron's likely visit to New Delhi.
Although India was once a British colony, France has shown an increased interest in the country since the 1990s. Paris is holding joint military exercises with New Delhi, and in terms of arms supplies, France ranks second in the Indian market after Russia.
Events in Ukraine could change the balance, as Moscow needs a lot of weapons at the front and may not meet the deadlines for the production of weapons for export. At least, this is what the French are counting on in their far-reaching aspirations to conquer the Indian arms market.
For India itself, there is not much difference from whom to buy weapons, the main thing is their quality and efficiency. The country lies between two hostile neighbors, nuclear-armed Islamic Pakistan and also nuclear-armed China. Both neighboring countries have territorial claims against India, and India has claims against them. Russia has been supplying almost half of all the weapons in India's inventory up to the present day.
Of course, France has not yet openly announced its plans to seize the arms market and the goals of Lecornu's visit. Formally, the trip of the Minister of Defense aims to demonstrate the desire of Paris to further strengthen relations with India. But the French Ministry of Defense previously quite openly stated that they could show the Indian authorities "European alternatives to Russian weapons."
Now France supplies Rafale fighter jets to India. As India looks to upgrade its fighter fleet and acquire another 100 new aircraft, Paris can look forward to receiving new contracts. In addition, there is a need for the construction of submarines for the Indian Navy. Moreover, the contract with Australia from France, as you know, fell through after the creation of the AUKUS bloc.
However, Macron's ambitions are one thing, and reality is quite another. In question is France's ability to ramp up production capacity to meet India's massive arms demand. Moreover, if Russia is “bogged down” in the Ukrainian conflict, as Europe believes, then Europe itself is experiencing a severe energy crisis, which cannot but affect industry and the state of production capacities. How much the same Rafale will cost at the new prices for gas, which is used at the enterprises of the military industry in France, no one dares to say today. Will France have to transfer production to the same India, where energy resources are much cheaper than in today's Europe.
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