Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh held the 4th India-France Annual Defence Dialogue with Minister of Armed Forces of the French Republic Mr Sebastien Lecornu in New Delhi on November 28, 2022. A wide range of bilateral, regional, defence and defence industrial cooperation issues were discussed in the dialogue. The Ministers reviewed the ongoing military-to-military cooperation which has increased substantially in recent years. They discussed means to strengthen maritime cooperation and increase the scope and complexity of bilateral exercises. They noted with satisfaction that India and France recently held their bilateral Air Exercise ‘Garuda’ at Air Force Station, Jodhpur successfully. The Ministers recognised their convergences on a number of strategic and defence issues and shared the commitment to work together on enhancing cooperation in bilateral, regional and multilateral fora, with a focus on the Indo-Pacific region.
As part of his visit to India, Mr Sebastien Lecornu made a day-long trip to Headquarters, Southern Naval Command and visited India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant. The French Minister of Armed Forces stated that he was highly impressed with INS Vikrant.
