France has decided against helping Pakistan upgrade its fleet of Mirage fighter jets, air defense system, and Agosta 90B class submarines, a direct fallout of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s loud criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron’s defense of the right to mock religion following the murder of a French schoolteacher.
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France has also told Qatar, one of the countries that bought the Rafale fighters, not to allow Pakistan-origin technicians to work with the plane over concerns that they could leak technical information about the fighter to Islamabad as the Omni-role jet is the front-line fighter of India.
Paris has already started putting the asylum requests from Pakistanis under detailed scrutiny in view of the strained ties between the two countries and the stabbing incident outside the former Paris office of the controversial Charlie Hebdo magazine.
The French government’s decision not to upgrade the Mirage III and Mirage 5 fighter jets could severely impact the Pakistan Air Force which has had about 150 Mirage fighter jets manufactured by the French firm Dassault Aviation.
