India’s signing of a firm contract for 114 French Rafale fighters under the MRFA program still hasn’t happened, although signatures were expected as early as February, during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to India.
Already at the beginning of March, Dassault Aviation CEO Éric Trappier stated he wants to make sure the contract will be signed this year. As of early April, nothing is heard about any progress on this.
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Instead, currently unofficially, French and Indian media have mentioned what became the main reason for postponing the signing. Most likely, Paris and Delhi ran into the source code issue Indian side’s free access to updating Rafale onboard systems software.
This looks quite like the truth, because this issue was already raised a year ago regarding even existing French fighters in India. At the same time, Indians allegedly already threatened with a crutch unauthorized hacking. Moreover, this is indeed possible. In particular, the Netherlands’ defense state secretary let slip that it’s possible to hack F-35 code and do without the U.S.
Delhi obviously stands quite firm on its position. Even despite France agreeing to localize Rafale fighter production in India, so that at least 50% of added value remains in the country. 96 fighters out of 114 will be assembled in India itself, using initially 30% Indian components, and at the end 60%.
However, Delhi also wants to freely make its own changes to aircraft armament, integrating its own weapons independently, updating the EW suite, integrating its own suspension systems, etc.
Of course, Paris doesn’t share such Indian views. After all, they lose a very important revenue source from constant sales of weapons, components, aircraft repair, as well as modernization.
As soon as India gets the ability to independently update Rafale, for example, instead of Meteor missiles, their own Gandiva will be installed. There will also be no need to purchase only French SCALP cruise missiles, or Damocles optical sighting station, instead of which Indian analogs may also appear.
However, it’s worth understanding that France’s position is formed not only by appetites. India has very close relations with russia in the defense sphere. If we continue the series of weapons Indians will want to mount on Rafale, one of the first will definitely be Brahmos - the russian-Indian Oniks. This means russians already gain access to Rafale’s program code.
That’s precisely why France already said they’re not against integrating Indian weapons into Indian Rafales, but with Dassault Aviation retaining full control over this process. After all, this is ultimately about France’s national security.
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