INDIA SIGNS NUCLEAR DEAL WITH FRANCE

(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2008 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3).

B. Prasant, PV correspondent in India

In the familiar "European" way, French President Nicolas Sarkozy almost put his solicitous arm around the shoulders of Pratibha Patil, his Indian counterpart, while drawing her attention to a fly past of aged Dassault-built Mirage fighter aircraft overhead. The gesture more or less revealed the subtext of Sarkozy's visit at India's 59th republican day celebrations in New Delhi on January 26. The French president was here to cajole a few deals to bolster the sagging economy of France, le Société Générale scandal having embarrassed him on the eve of his visit to the sub-continent.

     Sarkozy wanted to tap into the high 8.5% growth rate of the Indian economy (even as the deep divide between rich and poor becomes a chasm, and thousands of farmers commit suicide because of low crop prices), and in this he was hardly a failure.

     A France-India nuclear deal was agreed upon but not signed, thanks chiefly to the intense opposition that CPI(M) leader Prakash Karat has applied on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's "liberal westernization" on matters nuclear. But the joint statement that was later circulated leaves little doubt as to the nature of the "cooperation". India is prevented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from buying fuel for atomic reactors and related equipment, because of its nuclear weapons tests conducted in 1974 and 1988.

     The proposed bi-lateral deal for "development of nuclear energy for civilian purposes" would "form the basis of wide-ranging bilateral cooperation from basic and applied research to full civil nuclear cooperation, including reactors, fuel supply," and crucially, "management." With India declaring its intention to "go beyond buyer-seller relationship with France on defence deals," it was little wonder that Sarkozy offered to "look after" Indian interests at the level of the IAEA.

     Under the deal between the Department of Atomic Energy of India and the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA), India shall be "allowed participation" in the Jules Horowitz Recherché Réacteur to be constructed at Cadararche in south France. Sarkozy declared that the French consortium Areva was "ready to build" twenty "pollution free" nuclear plants in India, but would not answer questions on the financial and political costs involved. "India needs at least 30 nuclear reactors," was the cavalier French leader's off-the-cuff estimate.

     The imperatives of the India-France deal include more opening up of the Indian market to French imports (chiefly consumer goods); "technology transfer" (more dependence on French high-end technology, putting Indian research and development endeavours on the backburner in several sectors); space research (India putting satellites with French componential "add-ons" to French-built rockets taking off from French territories); and finally, a lucrative (for France) deal to sell Dassault Mirage 2000 H multi-role fighter jets (1978 vintage) to India at a rate higher than bids by Russia and China.

     Nicolas Sarkozy also managed to extract a promise that France will be allowed to "upgrade" India's existing Mirage F1 fighters (1973 vintage) for a "mere" US$3 million each. The total cost to India is likely to exceed 1.5 billion euros.

     Surprisingly, the French Euro Consortium's earlier bid to sell 197 NH90 helicopter gunships to India for US$600 million had to be scrapped on the eve of delivery, when it was revealed that middle-men on the French side had hiked up the prices considerably. One of the biggest buyers of sophisticated weapons in the world, India plans to purchase over US$30 billion worth of military hardware in this year alone.

     Following the footsteps of visiting British prime ministers and US presidents, Sarkozy also assured PM Manmohan Singh that France would "seriously" back India's efforts to obtain a permanent seat on the UN Security Council; the pronouncement was passé and so was the reaction among the Indian ruling classes. Sarkozy's visit would benefit France alone, making India that much more dependent on a staunch European ally of Bush's USA.

     The visit paradoxically was une folie de grandeur for Sarkozy personally. "Niki" is reeling from bitter attacks for his description of the young men and women of the Paris banlieues (suburbs) as "vulgar rabble" (the same hate-loaded phrase racaille was used by Charles de Gaulle during the late 1960s), and for his utter failure to ameliorate race relations in France. 

     The French establishment had looked to this Indian sojourn for a grand gesture on the controversy around the wearing of the Sikh turban in France; after all, fellow Bush-worshipper Manmohan Singh is himself a turban-wearing Sikh. But Nicolas Sarkozy, a hard-boiled conservative, hemmed-and-hawed his way out of a budding impasse.

     The French media was not pleased. Even the hard centre Le Monde commented in a very adverse manner, not to speak of the commentaries carried by le Nouvel Observateur and Libération, or their counterparts in the Indian-language press. The mercantile Sikh community, many of whom engage in multi-lateral trade with both France and Canada, take the turban controversy very seriously. They have started to send signals to Manmohan Singh to go slow on the India-France trade agreements. Can we look forward to another free-fall of popularity for the newly-married "Niki"?

Found at: http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint13/11_INDIA_SIGNS_NUCLEAR_DEAL_WITH_FRANCE.html