India and France Built Six Scorpene Submarines in Mumbai, Took Delivery of 36 Rafales by 2022 and Upgraded Their 1998 Partnership to a Special Global Strategic Partnership on 17 February 2026

India and France have worked under a declared strategic partnership since 26 January 1998, and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) lists what it has produced: six Scorpene submarines built at Mazagon Dock in Mumbai, 36 Rafale fighters delivered by 2022, and an upgrade on 17 February 2026 to a “Special Global Strategic Partnership”. The MEA’s July 2026 bilateral brief says the 1998 agreement was India’s first strategic partnership with a Western country and France’s first with a non-Western one.

Both governments call the relationship a partnership, and this article does the same. Figures are as of 19 October 2026.

The partnership launched on 26 January 1998

The MEA names defence and security, civil nuclear matters and space as the principal pillars of the 1998 agreement. Deccan Herald reports that the French President of the day, Jacques Chirac, was the Republic Day guest that year. A few months later India carried out the Pokhran-II nuclear tests. According to Deccan Herald, France joined the rest of the West in condemning them but did not back the United States-led move at the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on India. Kanwal Sibal, a former Foreign Secretary and ambassador to France, called the French response one of “great moderation” at an Observer Research Foundation event reported in 2013.

The partnership was renewed during the Prime Minister’s visit of 13 and 14 July 2023, as guest of honour at France’s national day, when the two governments adopted the Horizon 2047 Roadmap. The joint statement says the roadmap sets the course up to 2047, the centenary of India’s independence, the centenary of diplomatic relations and 50 years of the strategic partnership. The French President was Republic Day chief guest in January 2024, and the MEA calls it unprecedented for the two leaders to be guests of honour at successive national days.

On 17 February 2026, in Mumbai, the two leaders agreed the Special Global Strategic Partnership and created an annual Foreign Ministers Comprehensive Dialogue to review progress on Horizon 2047. The same day the sixth Annual Defence Dialogue, held in Bengaluru, renewed the ten-year defence cooperation agreement and announced that each army would post officers to the other’s establishments, the MEA says.

Thirty-six Rafales delivered, twenty-six more for the Navy

France completed delivery of 36 Rafale fighters to the Indian Air Force in 2022, the MEA brief says, under an intergovernmental agreement dated 2016, according to Deccan Herald.

On 28 April 2025 the two governments signed a second intergovernmental agreement, for 26 Rafale-Marine carrier jets for the Navy: 22 single-seaters and four twin-seaters. The Ministry of Defence release says the package covers training, a simulator, weapons and performance-based logistics, plus extra equipment for the Air Force’s existing Rafales. It also includes transfer of technology for fitting indigenous weapons, a Rafale fuselage production facility in India, and overhaul facilities in India for the aircraft’s engine, sensors and weapons. Delivery is to finish by 2030, with crews trained in France and India. The release gives no price and no first-delivery date.

A third order is in negotiation. On 12 February 2026 the Defence Acquisition Council gave Acceptance of Necessity, an in-principle approval that is not a contract, to a Multi Role Fighter Aircraft purchase described as Rafale, and the release says most of the aircraft will be built in India. The release states no number. PTI reports the proposal as 114 aircraft, and on 3 October 2026 it quoted the Air Chief Marshal as saying price talks are under way and the deal is likely to be finalised by the end of the financial year if plans materialise in time. PTI adds that with the 36 in Air Force service and the Navy’s 26, a signed deal would bring the Rafale total to 176.

Six Scorpene submarines built in Mumbai

Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders built the Scorpene submarines in collaboration with Naval Group of France, the Ministry of Defence says. The first, INS Kalvari, was commissioned on 14 December 2017, according to the Navy’s release at the time. The sixth, Vaghsheer, was delivered on 9 January 2025 and commissioned on 15 January alongside a destroyer and a frigate. The Prime Minister said it was the first time a destroyer, a frigate and a submarine had been commissioned together, and that all three were made in India.

The delivery release says the commissioning would mark the culmination of Project 75, the programme that built six submarines. The February 2026 joint statement describes the Scorpene programme as a made-in-India success and welcomes the continuation of cooperation on submarines, without naming a new contract. The wider shift from importer to maker in Indian defence is covered separately.

Varuna at Toulon in September 2026

The Varuna naval exercise has run since 2001, the Ministry of Defence says. The 23rd edition, from 19 to 22 March 2025, brought together the carriers INS Vikrant and Charles de Gaulle with an Indian Scorpene-class submarine, and the drills included air defence work by the French Rafale-M and the Indian MiG-29K.

The 24th began on 22 September 2026, when the ship INS Trishul reached Toulon. The Ministry of Defence release of 1 October says the sea phase included anti-submarine, anti-surface and live-firing drills with the French navy’s Forbin, La Fayette and Suffren, NH90 helicopters and Atlantique 2 patrol aircraft. The crew also laid a wreath at the Mazargues War Memorial in Marseille for 205 Indian soldiers who died in the World Wars.

What the official pages say about engines

The joint statement records “ongoing discussions on furthering defence cooperation in helicopter and jet engines” and a shared wish to strengthen cooperation in making fighter aircraft and combat aircraft engines under Make in India.

Three engine-related projects are documented. In November 2025 Safran opened an engine overhaul centre near Hyderabad, which the MEA calls India’s first deep-level aircraft engine overhaul facility set up by a global engine maker. It is designed to service up to 300 LEAP engines a year, the type that powers the Airbus A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX, and to employ more than 1,000 technicians and engineers by 2035. Safran also announced an overhaul shop for the Rafale’s M88 engine beside it, and signed a joint venture with Bharat Electronics Limited to make the Hammer air-to-surface weapon, which the MEA says can be fitted to the Rafale and the HAL Tejas. The joint statement adds a Safran and HAL partnership on the Indian Multi Role Helicopter.

On a new fighter engine, the Ministry of Defence release of 16 February 2026 on a visit to the Gas Turbine Research Establishment in Bengaluru says the process has been initiated with France for aero engines under the National Aero Engine Mission, following a joint study with the United Kingdom. Press reports go further. Meta-Defense reported in early August 2026 that Safran and the establishment had submitted a proposal to the Cabinet Committee on Security to co-develop a turbofan of 110 to 130 kN thrust for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft Mk2, with approval expected before 15 August. tuput found no official page that confirms the proposal or a clearance.

From Megha-Tropiques to Trishna

ISRO and the French space agency CNES have cooperated for more than 50 years, the MEA says. The best-known joint satellite is Megha-Tropiques, launched on 12 October 2011 by an Indian PSLV rocket to study the atmosphere over the tropics, where cyclones and monsoons form. CNES led the development of the SAPHIR and ScaRaB instruments and shared the MADRAS imaging radiometer with ISRO. It had a nominal three-year life, and CNES says the mission ended in March 2023 after several extensions. It was part of the Global Precipitation Measurement constellation with NASA and JAXA.

The next joint mission is Trishna, which will image surface temperature in visible and thermal infrared light. CNES’s page, updated on 30 June 2026, gives a 2027 launch, a 761-km orbit, a revisit of three days at the equator and a 60-metre product resolution, with a thermal infrared instrument developed by CNES and an optical sensor supplied by ISRO. It lists delivery of the instrument to India in 2026 and the status as in development.

A CNES and ISRO letter of intent on microgravity research and human space exploration was signed in Nice in June 2026, and the joint statement calls for the third India-France Strategic Space Dialogue in 2026. ISRO’s wider record is covered separately.

Jaitapur and the nuclear track

Here the official pages describe talks rather than a finished project. The joint statement, in its French text, notes the regular meetings of the special task force on civil nuclear energy and the ongoing discussions on the Jaitapur nuclear power project. The MEA says the task force met twice in 2025, and that in February 2025 the two sides signed a letter of intent on small and advanced modular reactors and an agreement on training nuclear professionals.

The statement also welcomes India’s target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 and the reforms that allow private investment, which the SHANTI Act article covers. Neither page gives a construction date for Jaitapur.

Trade, students and people

Bilateral trade reached 13.6 billion euros in 2025-26, more than double the level of a decade earlier, with Indian exports to France at 6.1 billion euros, the MEA says. France is India’s third-largest trading partner in the European Union, after the Netherlands and Germany. French investment from April 2000 to December 2025 was over 10 billion euros, which makes France the 11th largest foreign investor at 1.55 percent of inflows, and 38 of the 40 companies in France’s CAC 40 index operate in India. During the Prime Minister’s visit to France in June 2026 the two sides set up a high-level mechanism to double bilateral trade within five years. The MEA expects the India-EU trade agreement to add to that.

About 10,000 Indian students are in France, and the joint statement sets a target of 30,000 by 2030. Campus France records that the 2023 roadmap also named 20,000 by 2025, and the February 2026 statement still gives the present figure as 10,000.

The MEA estimates 119,000 people of Indian origin in mainland France and more than 350,000 in the overseas territories, over 300,000 of them on Réunion Island. India’s UPI payment system had recorded about 9,000 transactions worth nearly 930,000 euros in France by June 2026.

The next dated milestone is 2028, when the MEA says a Namaste France festival and a cultural year on India at the Musée Guimet will mark 30 years of the strategic partnership.