French Envoy Refuses Assurances On Jets Sale To Pak

French ambassador to India Claude Blanchemaison has ruled out assurances to India that Paris will not sell sophisticated fighter aircraft to Pakistan, even as an advisor to French Prime Minister Alain Juppe is scheduled to arrive here towards the end of the month.

If you want me to say that we wont do business with such and such country then I wont, because France is a sovereign country, the ambassador told journalists here, adding, but everybody knows how the situation has evolved.

The French advisor, Guy Sorman, is the president of the Commission for Strategy Planning attached to the prime ministers office in Paris.

 

His visit is one in a series of high-level interactions France has decided to undertake in order to up the ante in the relationship.

Bilateral ties with France were on an even keel until about a year ago, when it was reported that Paris was keen on selling 50 Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Islamabad.

Then Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had made the announcement after a visit to France, which was never subsequently denied by the French. But the Indo-French relationship went into a tailspin and former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao cancelled the bilateral joint commission as a sign of Indias displeasure.

A special envoy to the French prime minister Jean-Francois Poncet was hurriedly sent to New Delhi to explain the French stand. The sale of fighter aircraft to Pakistan has since not taken place, but three French submarines have already been paid for by Islamabad.

The French ambassador, however, sought to place that hiccup in the bilateral relationship as a thing of the past and said he hoped that private business and government would join together to create new understandings.

What has happened recently is a real reluctance on the part of French firms to come to India...its a question of image, Blanchemaison said, referring to prejudices that French businessmen continue to hold about the Indian bureaucracy.

He admitted that China had been the preferred destination of French entrepreneurs until recently (along with newer locations in central Europe and Russia), but we have done what we could have done in China. Now we are looking at alternatives and one of them is India, he added.