General Fabien Mandon, Chief of the Defence Staff of the French Armed Forces, is in India to deepen the strategic partnership between the two nations, according to the Ministry of Defence. During his visit to New Delhi, the French CDS held meetings with his Indian counterpart General Raja Subramani and Defence Secretary RK Singh.
The visit follows Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to France a month earlier and comes amid an intensifying cycle of high-level military engagements between New Delhi and Paris. French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin attended India’s sixth annual defence dialogue in February, co-chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Over the past eighteen months, military leaders from both nations have exchanged multiple visits at the highest levels. The French Chief of Staff visited India twice, in February 2024 and October 2025, while India’s Chief of Defence Staff travelled to France in April 2024. India’s Army Chief followed with a visit in February 2025, and the French Navy Chief attended the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium in Visakhapatnam in February 2026.
Defence cooperation forms the core pillar of the Indo-French Strategic Partnership, which was elevated to this status in 1998. The relationship has expanded across civil nuclear cooperation, space, artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and the Indo-Pacific trilateral framework involving Australia.
In recent years, defence collaboration has translated into tangible platform acquisitions and industrial partnerships. India received 36 Rafale fighter jets in 2022, with the sixth Scorpene-class submarine commissioned in 2025. The Indian Navy signed an agreement in 2025 for 26 Rafale-M carrier-borne variants with technology transfer and indigenous integration provisions, marking a significant expansion of naval air capability.
The Rafale platform has become central to India’s air combat strategy, offering multi-role capability across air-to-air, air-to-ground, and anti-ship missions. The Rafale-M variant for carrier operations addresses the Indian Navy’s requirement for advanced fixed-wing combat aircraft aboard INS Vikramaditya and the under-construction INS Vikrant.
Industrial cooperation has deepened through joint manufacturing initiatives. Safran’s maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) centre in Hyderabad, inaugurated in 2025, can service up to 300 LEAP turbofan engines annually. Plans for an M88 engine shop expand this capability to include the powerplant fitted to Rafale aircraft, underlining technology transfer and self-reliance objectives. Airbus Helicopters opened an H125 assembly line in Karnataka in 2026, adding helicopter production to the Indo-French defence manufacturing footprint.
Both nations prioritise strategic autonomy and self-reliance in defence procurement and production. The expanding defence industrial base reflects India’s broader Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat objectives while offering France sustained market access and industrial partnerships in Asia’s fastest-growing defence economy.