Context: Recently, the Indian Navy conducted a joint patrol with the French Navy from the Reunion Island in February. The patrol was conducted by a P-8I aircraft with French Navy personnel onboard.

About this patrol on Reunion Island

• The Indian and French Navy for the first time conducted joint patrols from the Reunion Island which is an overseas region of France and an island east of Madagascar and 175 km southwest of Mauritius.
• The patrol was conducted by a P-8I aircraft with French Navy personnel onboard.
• According to the report India has carried out Coordinated Patrols (CORPAT) only with maritime neighbours and had rejected a similar offer by the US.
• France is also the first country to deploy a Liaison Officer at the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre (IFC-IOR) as part of efforts to improve Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA).
• For the implementation of the White Shipping agreement, India and France welcome the appointment of a French liaison officer at the Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in Gurugram. 
• The two nations further intend to coordinate their action at the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and undertake, along with interested states, a joint project for reinforcing assets for combatting piracy and all kinds of maritime trafficking in the Southern Indian Ocean.
• France also intends to work concertedly with India at the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), over which it will preside from 2020 to 2022.

About CORPAT

• CORPAT is an Indian Navy tactical procedure on behalf of Indian “Wannabe” diplomatic ambitions rather than a Multi National Treaty.
• CORPAT has been carried out with Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Thailand.
• It is a naval procedure that India carries out with any other country that is willing in an attempt at showing the flag as a diplomatic maneuver.

Major strategic partner

• France has steadily emerged as a major strategic partner for India with big ticket defence deals and increased military to military engagement. 
• The Indian navy is currently inducting French Scorpene conventional submarines, being built in India under technology transfer, and the Indian Air Force will soon get the first batch of its 36 Rafale fighter jets.
• Currently, under the ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and broader maritime cooperation, the Indian Navy undertakes joint EEZ surveillance with Maldives, Seychelles and Mauritius and CORPATs with Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia.
• The joint patrols, along with other activities, are part of the Navy’s increasing engagement in the Indian Ocean Region through capacity-building and joint activities for improving MDA and interoperability.

Mutual benefits between Indo-France in Defence

• Indo-French naval cooperation is aimed at securing the critical sea lanes, the need to effectively combat security threats piracy, trans-national crime and terrorism and also to build security capacities in the Indian Ocean.
• The more substantive pay-off of a nautical pact with France for India is a potential expansion of the Indian Navy’s operational footprint across the Indo-Pacific region.
• Future discussions might result in the signing of a reciprocal agreement granting French naval vessels access to Indian ports for repair and resupply, and Indian vessels the right to routinely use France’s Indian Ocean military bases like Djibouti where china has a base.
• French facilities are likely to add to India’s network of nautical outposts in the IOR, including in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and Seychelles, where India plans to build and operate a military base. 
• French companies, such as Dassault Aviation etc are  extremely competitive and the country’s defence industry has a reliable record of production and supply with firms having particular expertise in navigating India’s defence market for instance the contracts for the Rafale aircraft and Scorpene submarines (Project-75).
• A nautical pact with France sends a strong message to India’s geopolitical antagonists in maritime Asia. India will be hoping for a closer engagement in the Western Indian Ocean, where France has one of the most forward-deployed armed forces in the world.
• India’s naval leadership would be keen to expand the scope and complexity of the Indo-French bilateral naval exercise VARUNA
• A partnership with the French navy in littoral South-East Asia would allow the Indian Navy to influence the security-dynamic of the Pacific, even extending operations to the Southern Pacific Islands.