India and France are now prepared to conduct a coordinated maritime surveillance mission in the southern Indian Ocean Region (IOR) as part of their strong strategic partnership, even as their air force leaders participated in the ongoing "Garuda" air combat exercise by flying fighter aircraft in Jodhpur.
Officials said a P-8I long range maritime patrol aircraft of the Indian Navy has touched down at the strategically-located La Réunion, a French overseas island east of Madagascar and southwest of Mauritius, for coordinated surveillance and ocean-mapping operations with the French Navy “to further enhance maritime domain awareness, security and safety in the southern IOR”.
This becomes important with China, which has the world’s largest Navy with 355 warships and submarines, actively scouting for logistical facilities in the IOR after establishing its first overseas base at Djibouti on the Horn of Africa in 2017.
Concurrently, in the ongoing seventh edition of the bilateral Garuda exercise at Jodhpur, Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari flew in a twin-seat Rafale jet, while French Air and Space Force (FASF) chief General Stéphane Mille undertook a sortie in a Sukhoi-30MKI.
ACM Chaudhari said that there is growing interoperability between IAF and FASF, with the Garuda exercise providing a “unique opportunity” for both to learn from each other and imbibe best practices during operations.
India has made military logistics pacts with France and other countries like the US, Japan, Australia, South Korea and Singapore to improve its strategic reach in IOR to counter China’s expanding footprint in the region. These pacts are inked by India enable organised military forces to share logistics to support each other’s warships and aircraft as part of the overall defence cooperation.
