In this season of high-level visits, one of the most prominent leaders to have been in India is President Macron of France. As ever, French statesmen bring particular flavour to the relationship with India: they have successfully helped develop the association between the two countries in a manner that encourages innovation and gives emphasis to shared values, especially in the field of culture, as for instance in Auroville as an enclave of French culture and an abiding link between India and France.
President Macron did not actually visit Auroville but this is the most important of the French-oriented centres that proclaim a historical legacy that both countries wish to preserve and nurture.
Mr Macron spoke of the desirability of strengthening exchanges between young people from either side, which is a forward-looking aspiration at this time when sentiment in many parts of the world is not friendly to visitors from elsewhere.
There are many incidents that target people who have come from outside and are subjected to many forms of discrimination and violence, and this has become a challenging phenomenon that affects many immigrant communities, including some of Indian origin.
In these circumstances, President Macron’s call for closer contact among the youth of different parts of the world can be salutary and point to a better way of providing for the future.
It is worth noting too that over the years France has adopted a distinctive, more accommodating approach in its dealings with developing countries, including India, in which economic interests are not ignored while strategic and longer term factors are given the priority they merit.
This was to be seen especially in the early days, when traditional suppliers that had long equipped the Indian armed services retained their ascendancy as equipment suppliers, while France provided a welcome alternative source of supply; as a modern and very capable country with a well-developed defence industry it had much to offer, as it does today with state-of-the-art aircraft like the Rafale.
Superpower rivalry of those times and bloc dynamics notwithstanding, France emerged as a significant source of defence equipment that was not unduly constrained by global rivalries, and thus in a position to meet defence needs from which others shied away. This has been an established part of the bilateral relationship.
Apart from being a major source of defence supplies, France also provided India with a substantial measure of economic support for its development activities though not on the scale of other major economic global entities like the USA and the former Soviet Union.
By now, of course, with India taking its place among the economic heavyweights, provision of concessional development support is a historical footnote, not an active preoccupation for either side.
The joint statement released during Mr. Macron’s visit identifies the main themes of the current relationship. As was only to be expected, defence is near the top of the list, building on the well-established ties in this area, nurtured over the years.
India and France have collaborated on a number of hi-tech projects, and Mr Macron’s visit will encourage fresh initiatives that yield results over the years.
Top-level visits like the one just concluded are a feature of India-France exchanges, being occasions aimed at promoting business and practical exchanges.
Major projects for the future include collaboration on the development of railways, where France is a world leader and India lags behind, making for an obvious possibility of collaborative arrangements between them, and possibly offsets some of the leadership role assumed by other countries like China in this field.
What major infrastructure projects could come out of the Macron visit is difficult to assess at this stage but India received Mr Macron with open arms and seems to have made a serious effort to open fresh lines of collaboration with his country.
A major initiative from the visit is the ‘International Solar Alliance’ to be led by India and France, which will give impetus to the international effort to harness solar energy so as to provide the world with clean, non-polluting fuel and try to keep at bay the mounting threat of global warming.
International opinion is strongly in favour of stronger controls on carbon emissions but the India-France initiative comes at a time when USA has not shed its skepticism about global warming and seems unwilling to support international efforts to curb that phenomenon.
The US skepticism on this theme is often attributed to President Trump whose strong personal signature is to be seen on his country’s policy but one should not fail to heed some of the earlier signs of US disbelief about this phenomenon, going back as far as the Kyoto Protocol of several decades ago when the USA and some others kept away from that important treaty on climate change.
Though the Solar Alliance will do what it can to take us in a positive direction it may not be an altogether simple matter to persuade skeptics to subscribe to it and the idea of the Solar Alliance may attract opposition in some quarters.
Another vexed issue is the consequences of the British decision to leave the EU ~ ‘Brexit’. This is as yet far from settled and with Europe now in the grip of change there is considerable uncertainty about its future.
India may not remain unaffected by the sweeping reordering of Europe that could be on the cards. For historical the reasons, UK has been India’s foremost partner among the countries of Europe ~ indeed, at one stage the UK saw itself as a friend that could help India find its course through the maze of the Brussels bureaucracy.
Such patterns of special association and friendship may no longer be relevant and the implications of Brexit are not easy to predict, though it seems possible that the British exit will affect the internal dynamics of the EU.
It is thus an unsettled time as the EU makes adjustments to respond to the changing times.Brexit has compelled EU to change, and Mr Macron showed diplomatic adroitness in calling for a new and more meaningful India-EU relationship in this changed context: for the future he saw India as a strategic partner for his country in South Asia, while playing the part of strategic partner for India in Europe.
This would be an important step forward and to strengthen ties with France, one of Europe’s most significant countries, and to take relations to a new and more elevated level is a significant achievement. Partnership between the two countries as outlined by Mr. Macron offers many benefits to both of them.
The writer is India’s former Foreign Secretary