India and France will sign several declarations and agreements during the visit of the French President Jacques Chirac early next week. Significantly, both countries will sign a declaration agreeing to cooperate on the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, defense, and tourism. Chirac is traveling with an entourage of 30 CEOs of leading French companies. Chirac will also expected to communicate to the Indian Government that France will officially take the Mirage 2000-5 fighter plane off the mega 126 combat aircraft order that the Indian air force has floated. Instead it will offer Rafale, a more advanced and feature-rich evolved variant of the Mirage. The reason for this decision is because France is planning to retire the Mirage and another 3 to 5 years of production will make it unprofitable to sell the plane. The IAF, which has been actively promoting the Mirage, is now in a quandary over this decision. It has now quickly evaluated the Rafale with the US offer of F/A-18 Super Hornet. A major consideration for India has been co-production, maintenance, and trained personnel in the Mirage and switching to a new aircraft may mean more money down per plane but also increased operational, infrastructural, and support capital costs. France says that the Rafale draws on the Mirage and is not that much more expensive to upgrade the factories and support infrastructure. Another issue that will certainly feature in discussions will be the French opposition to the Mittal Steel's USD 23 billion offer to buy Arcelor. India expressed shock over the European Union's political opposition to a commercial deal. Federal Commerce and Trade Minister Kamal Nath wrote to the EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson wondering how the EU could expect developing countries to open up the services sector when they are closed to commercial deals.

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