FRENCH KISS

Paris is positioning itself to be the most important supplier of military equipment to India 

- SANJIB KR BARUAH

On May 11, 1998, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee gave the world a shock by announcing that India had exploded the nuclear bomb again. The tests were conducted in Pokhran, in the deserts of Rajasthan, where India tested its first nuclear device in 1974 under Indira Gandhi. The west, led by the United States, was furious and sanctions followed. But there was an exception. French president Jacques Chirac went against the western consensus and chose to pursue closer ties with India.

Cut to the present, when US President Joe Biden expressed his inability to attend the Republic Day celebrations as chief guest, there was no real panic in the corridors of the South Block. Because Indian diplomats knew that they could bank on the ever-dependable French. And Jawed Ashraf, the Indian ambassador in Paris, sprung into action.

Soon and sure enough, on December 22, President Emmanuel Macron took to X to confirm that he would be attending the Republic Day celebrations as chief guest. Less than seven months ago, on July 14, it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was the guest of honour at the Champs-Elysees in Paris during the Bastille Day celebrations, which, as the French national day, commemorates the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 during the French Revolution.

That day, as Rafale fighters from the Indian Air Force flew overhead, Macron, with Modi at his side, said, “[India] is a giant in the history of the world which will have a determining role in our future.” Apart from telephonic interactions, the two leaders have met several times in the last two