India, France to hold naval drills

The nuclear-powered French carrier force, comprising two frigates and one support ship, has for several months been on mission “Clemenceau 21”, which deals with fighting terrorism in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea/ Persian Gulf.

Published on: Feb 23, 2021, 06:50:46 IST

By Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

India and France will cement their defence cooperation in April when the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier strike force will conduct exercises with INS Vikramaditya in two phases in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, according to people familiar with the matter.

India and France have strengthened their bilateral relationship with convergence in the UN Security Council and building the Indian Air Force’s capacity through the purchase of medium transport aircraft and multi-role transport tankers. (Representative Image) (AFP Photo/File)

The dates of the exercises are being scheduled between the two navies, the people added.

The nuclear-powered French carrier force, comprising two frigates and one support ship, has for several months been on mission “Clemenceau 21”, which deals with fighting terrorism in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea/ Persian Gulf.

According to Indian Navy officers aware of the developments, the Western Fleet with its newly appointed commander Rear Admiral Ajay Kochhar will conduct advanced exercises with the French carrier task force. While Charles de Gaulle is a 42,500 tonne aircraft carrier with Rafale M fighters on board, INS Vikramaditya is a conventionally powered aircraft carrier with displacement of 44,500 tonne and has MiG-29K aircraft on board.

April will also see renewed engagement with France with foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visiting India to deliver a lecture at a think-tank and engage in a political dialogue. Both India and France have convergence over freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific, with Paris appointing a special envoy for the region.

To add to this will be the arrival of seven Rafale jets from France between April 19 and 23, after which the first squadron of the French omni-role fighter will be completed at the Ambala airbase. The remaining 18 fighters will be deployed at Hashimara in the eastern sector to cover the strategic Siliguri corridor.

India and France have strengthened their bilateral relationship with convergence in the UN Security Council and building the Indian Air Force’s capacity through the purchase of medium transport aircraft and multi-role transport tankers.

The two countries have also joined hands in development of air independent propulsion for conventional submarines for future Indian submersible ships.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.