India’s PM Modi met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Wednesday. The Indian Prime Minister is spending the evening at the Elysee Palace. Emmanuel Macron seeks to spare this partner, but there are many disagreements on the position towards Moscow.
It is a quick stopover: a bilateral meeting and then a dinner. And the discussions are not going to be easy on the main subject of the war in Ukraine. Officially, New Delhi has been speaking very politically correct since the beginning: “We are for peace, nobody has anything to gain from this war, dialogue is the only way to solve this conflict”. However, India is a key element of France’s geopolitical strategy in the so-called Indo-Pacific zone. Then, France also sells arms to New Delhi. In particular Rafale aircraft, 36 in total for the last six years.
Narendra Modi is the first foreign leader that Emmanuel Macron has met since his re-election. So there is still a symbol. And the Indian Prime Minister was keen to add this Parisian stop to his European tour, which has also taken him to Germany and Denmark.
This visit to Paris comes after the 2nd India-North Summit in Copenhagen, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with his Swedish counterpart where both parties reviewed the progress made in the bilateral partnership. He also discussed energy, space and healthcare with his Norwegian counterpart.
But behind the rhetoric, in reality, India has sided with Moscow, a long-standing partner with whom Narendra Modi does not want to lose his temper. Despite Western pressure, New Delhi refrained from condemning the Russian invasion during the two votes held at the UN in March. And India also refuses to impose any sanctions against Moscow. It goes further. At the end of March, following a visit by the head of Russian diplomacy to India, New Delhi agreed with Moscow to buy millions of barrels of Russian oil at a reduced price. The two capitals also want to create a payment mechanism in rubles and rupees, a way to get around Western sanctions.
