Space Collaboration between India and France: Towards a New Era
In the sphere of space research, France-India collaboration began in the early 1960s, with France providing assistance to India’s Rohini sounding rockets programme. Over the years, France has played a constructive role in helping India to develop its ground and space infrastructure, as well as its launching platforms and human resources. In point of fact, France has emerged as one of India’s most dependable partner in the realm of space.
And while this space relationship witnessed a period of dormancy in the 1990s, it gained momentum with the strategic partnership agreement of January 1998. Since then, India and France have further engaged in joint satellite development programmes as well as in joint commercial launch services. India in 2013 has even relied on French launch services in order to put strategic communication satellites into space for the Indian Navy. Ajey Lele suggests that the time has come for India and France to take this collaboration to the next level and to develop a common approach on sensitive issues such as space security and space awareness.
This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.
Space Collaboration between India and France: Towards a New Era
Center for Asian Studies
Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.
The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands.
The Centre for Asian Studies maintains close institutional links with counterpart research institutes in Europe and Asia, and its researchers regularly carry out fieldwork in the region.
The Center organizes closed-door roundtables, expert-level seminars and a number of public events, including an Annual Conference, that welcome experts from Asia, Europe and the United States. The work of Center’s researchers, as well as that of their partners, is regularly published in the Center’s electronic journal Asie.Visions.
China’s Climate Leadership after Hormuz: How Should Europe Adjust?
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in early 2026 offered an unplanned stress test of China’s approach to energy security, and China passed it far better than most expected. The episode demonstrated that the underlying risk of supply disruption is real, while validating a preference for resilience and resource security that has long underpinned Chinese energy and climate policy and has now been reinforced under the banner of building an “energy powerhouse.”
China as an ambivalent supporter of the WTO and the multilateral trading system
Amid rising trade tensions between Europe and China and broader uncertainty in the international rules-based trade regime, Beijing has worked to preserve and bolster the multilateral trading system while at the same time failing to reform the domestic policies that have served to undermine that same system.
Pakistan and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Transformation in Pakistan’s Approach After the War in Gaza
Pakistan has long combined vocal support for the Palestinian cause with covert engagement with Israel. Since the war in Gaza, this balance has become untenable: public opinion is united against Israel, joining Trump’s Board of Peace has drawn rare cross-party criticism, and new regional alignments put normalization out of reach.
The Oceania Factor in France’s Evolving Indo-Pacific Strategy
This paper examines the two-way relationship between France’s Indo-Pacific strategy and developments in Oceania. Oceania was not a priority in the initial years of France’s Indo-Pacific strategy, as the region was largely treated as secondary to major strategic hotspots and key partnerships, while overseas territories were primarily handled as domestic issues and recipients of a top-down strategy.