A little more than six months after being received with great fanfare in Paris for the July 14 parade, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a royal welcome to Emmanuel Macron. Guest of honor for the 75th anniversary of the country’s national holiday, Republic Day, this Friday, January 26, the French president began a two-day state visit to Jaipur, the capital of the state of Rajasthan, the day before.
For his “dear friend” Emmanuel Macron, the Indian Prime Minister pulled out all the stops. The two leaders took part in a parade in the streets of Jaipur. Flower petals were thrown at their procession as the crowd chanted “Modi, Modi”, waving Indian flags and a few French tricolors. This Friday morning, it was in a carriage, like a monarch, that Emmanuel Macron joined the traditional military parade, alongside Indian President Droupadi Murmu.
This pomp is probably intended to compensate in form for a visit which risks lacking substance. Emmanuel Macron agreed to be the second choice by replacing Joe Biden who was to be this year’s guest of honor from India. The American president finally declined in December 2023, against a backdrop of unease between the two countries: the United States had just revealed an assassination attempt attributed to the Indian secret services of a Sikh separatist on their soil. The visit of the French head of state therefore had to be organized in a record time of forty days.
The concern of human rights defenders
With India, France is being pragmatic, notably because Paris is eyeing new defense contracts. The South Asian giant has already purchased 36 French Rafales for its Air Force and announced, in July 2023, an order for 26 new Rafales for the Navy, still under negotiation, and three submarines. Paris also hopes to sell six nuclear reactors: France has been negotiating for more than ten years the construction of a nuclear power plant in Jaitapur, in the south of India, which would be the largest in the world. But the file still seems to be blocked.
On the eve of his visit to India, human rights organizations drew Emmanuel Macron’s attention to the worrying abuses of the Hindu nationalist’s regime. “For years we have been alerting the French authorities to the authoritarian excesses of the regime and its repeated attacks against public institutions and counter-powers (universities, justice, media),” argued Jean-Claude Samouiller, president of Amnesty International France. “Many marginalized groups and minorities in the country are discriminated against by society and threatened by hatred,” he continued, urging France not to remain silent.
Emmanuel Macron’s visit takes place while the regime of Narendra Modi seems to have changed. A few days before the visit of the French head of state, the Prime Minister, blurring the line between politics and religion, triumphantly inaugurated a Hindu temple to the glory of the god Ram in place of a mosque destroyed by Hindu fanatics in 1992. Since coming to power in 2014, the fate of religious minorities, and more particularly the 200 million Muslims, has been of concern in this country where secularism is nevertheless guaranteed by the Constitution.
Journalist threatened with expulsion
While the Indian authorities have rolled out the red carpet for Emmanuel Macron, they are threatening to expel the correspondent of The cross and Point established in India for over twenty years. Accused of “malicious” reporting, Vanessa Dougnac, one of the region’s best experts, denied the accusations against her. The country, once characterized by a dynamic and critical press, today ranks 161st out of 180 countries in the annual press freedom ranking produced by Reporters Without Borders.
Vanessa Dougnac has been banned from practicing her profession in India since September 2022. The French embassy in India and the Elysée have repeatedly tried to intervene. In vain. A sign of the growing assertiveness of India, which is no longer ready to make concessions to the West.