VSis the triumph of realpolitik. Three weeks after a state visit to Washington during which the Biden administration rolled out the red carpet for him, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, ended Friday, July 14, a fruitful visit to Paris, which devotes the geopolitical importance of the most populous country in the world.
Parade on the Champs-Elysées, banquet at the Louvre, heated meeting with the Indian diaspora at La Seine musicale, in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, dinner for two and Endless embraces between Mr. Modi and his host, Emmanuel Macron: the Parisian stay of the Indian Prime Minister was well filled. To mark twenty-five years of strategic partnership between Paris and New Delhi, it was crowned by a preliminary agreement on the sale of twenty-six Rafale aircraft, in their Navy version for aircraft carriers, and that of three submarines of Scorpene class, in addition to the thirty-six classic Rafale and six submarines already sold in New Delhi.
This agreement, to which are added cooperation projects in the space, energy and environmental fields, is accompanied by a roadmap for Franco-Indian cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. This is, beyond the economic fallout, the real issue of the treatment reserved for the head of the Indian government by his Western partners: in a region where their priority is to counterbalance the rise of Chinese power, New Delhi must be l ally number one.
A follower of “multi-alignment”, India is first guided by its own interest, and has avoided siding with Western countries in the war in Ukraine. But she chairs the G20 this year, plays an important role in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and has made a spectacular rapprochement with the United States in terms of defense and technology. The Indian giant is not only the fifth largest economy in the world, with a growth rate of 7%, it is also a key player on the geopolitical chessboard. And if India has to renew its military arsenal, it is better to buy from France than from Russia, its traditional supplier.
The reflection of a dangerously unstable world
All of this is true. Not to receive Mr. Modi and ignore what he represents in such a context would have been a mistake. To make him the guest of honor of the national holiday of July 14 was not necessarily essential, even if this honor was disguised under the homage, justified, to the participation of the Indian troops in the First World War. , celebrated by the magnificent parade of 240 Indian soldiers on the Champs-Elysées.
Criticisms of Mr. Modi’s autocratic drift and the exacerbated nationalism of his party, the Indian People’s Party (BJP), have been muted, even if no one dares to use the consecrated formula with regard to India of “the largest democracy in the world”. The question of whether we can govern a country in the long term by pitting the Hindu majority against the Muslim and Christian minorities nevertheless arises legitimately – but we leave it to intellectuals and the media to ask. This is the advantage of democracies. It is also the reflection of a dangerously unstable world where, to thwart the ambitions of authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China, it is sometimes necessary to rely on powers that are not as blameless as one would like.