In a blow to Pakistan military, the French government has decided against helping Pakistan upgrade its fleet of old Mirage fighter jets, air defence system and Agosta 90B class submarines.
This decision is a direct fallout of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Niazi criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron who had spoken for the French peoples right to freedom of speech and expression after the brutal beheading of a French school teacher who showed cartoons of Prophet Mohammad to his students.
Macron had said that the French citizens have the right to blaspheme which led to calling for a boycott of French products, particularly by Turkey, the new love interest for Pakistan.
France has also given strict instruction to Qatar, which has also purchased the Rafale fighters, not to allow Pakistan-origin technicians to work with the plane as they could leak technical information about the fighter to Islamabad and compromise the omni-role jet functions as it is the front-line fighter of India.
Also, Pakistan is known to share vital defence data, such as signal-intelligence and technical specs of western weapons system with China in the past.
Pakistan has a large fleet of Mirage jets and has decades of operational experience of flying these fighters, however, the French government’s decision not to upgrade the Mirage III and Mirage 5 fighter jets will be a serious blow to the operational efficiency of Pakistan Air Force (PAF).
PAF has around 150 Mirage fighter jets and as per reports only half of them are serviceable. If these fighters are out of commission, PAF will lose nearly four fighter squardens.
Many of the jets were purchased from other countries so their parts could be used and for a long time Islamabad had has been requesting Paris for upgrades, however, the request has been declined.
The second blow is to Pakistan Navy which operates Agosta submarines and Pakistan has again sought to upgrade its Agosta 90B class submarines with air-independent propulsion (AIP) systems which have also been rejected. At present Pakistan has three Agosta 90B submarines: Khalid, Saad and Hamza.
AIP is a system that allows submarines to remain submerged for a longer period of time. Just recently has also been rejected by France. In October 2019, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel had turned down a similar request for supply of the AIP systems.
The reason for not providing this technology to Pakistan was due to its role in promoting terror and Islamabad’s lack of cooperation in identifying the terrorists who carried out a truck bomb attack on the Germany Embassy in Kabul in May 2017.
Relationship between Paris and Islamabad has been under a lot of stress Paris li Hassan, an 18-year-old of Pakistani origin, stabbed two persons with a meat cleaver outside the office of Charlie Hibdo magazine’s previous office, unaware that the magazine had shifted out.
The jihadi’s father, who lives in Pakistan, showered praises on his son and said his had “done a great job” and he is “very happy” about the attack.
The French government’s decisions not to upgrade Mirage fighters and the submarines came after Niazi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called for a total boycott of French products by Muslim countries for the depection of Prophet Mohammad, considered blasphemous by Muslims.
Niazi called on Muslim-majority countries andasked them to unite against “growing Islamophobia in non-Muslim states”.
However, Pakistan did not receive any support from Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. In fact now it is an open secret that Saudi Arabia wants Pakistan to recognise the Jewish state of Israel.