India and France adopted a defence production roadmap during bilateral talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron in Jaipur on Thursday that would provide for the co-development and co-production of crucial military hardware and facilitate technology collaboration in a range of areas including space, land warfare, cyberspace and artificial intelligence, according to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday.
Both sides also agreed upon collaborating on science and technology, healthcare, education, research and more. During a special press briefing, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said the focus of defence cooperation between India and France aims to identify opportunities for partnership in the defence industrial sector that prioritise co-designing, co-development, co-production and building supply chains to fulfill the requirements of both countries and also in security partnership with other countries.
“These are the roadmaps which have been agreed upon. Roadmap on the India-France Defence Industrial Roadmap. An agreement on Defence space partnership. An MoU between New Space India Limited (NSIL) and Arianespace with regard to satellite launches. An industrial partnership between Tata and Airbus helicopters for the production of H125 helicopters with a significant indigenous and localization component,” he said.
Both sides also signed an agreement between the departments of science of technology, healthcare cooperation, education, training and research. This would include the space of digital health and the use of artificial intelligence in the healthcare sector. “It’s been agreed that the year 2026 will be celebrated as the India-France year of innovation,” Kwatra added.
On a possible deal between French engine maker and India Shakti jet engines, Jawed Ashraf, India’s Ambassador to France said it was under negotiations as the issue was over a set of specifications that would comply with India’s future fighter jet requirements.
“Safran is fully willing to do it with 100 per cent transfer of technology, 100 per cent transfer of technology in design development, certification, production and so on and so forth. But it’s obviously a very complex subject, and it has to fit in with the overall future requirements. So these discussions will continue to take place, and that’s also part of the defence industry roadmap,” he added.
Meanwhile, Kwatra announced that the Indian consulate in the southern city of Marseille in France and the French bureau in Hyderabad are ready to be operational. The two sides will set up a a solar academy in Senegal under the Star-C programme of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), which was created by India and France in 2015.
