Nicolas Sarkozy with Indian President Pratibha Patil and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Rashtrapati Bhavan. (AP)

New Delhi, Jan. 25: France today upped the ante in the race to bag big military contracts from India and President Nicolas Sarkozy offered strong support to a possible waiver of international rules for India to be able to conduct nuclear commerce.

India and France decided after bilateral talks to take their defence ties “beyond a buyer-seller relationship”. This is the standard that India has been following in talks with all countries, including traditional supplier Russia, on military relations.

But France has gone a step further with Dassault Aviation, one of the biggest military aviation companies in the world, offering to sell 40 new-generation Rafale aircraft upfront to the Indian Air Force.

The IAF is currently grappling with a crunch in its fighter inventory and last year floated a global tender for 126 combat aircraft for which six companies from the US, Russia, the UK and Sweden are vying.

At a joint news conference with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Sarkozy said India’s record of non-proliferation was exemplary. He said with that kind of a record, the world community should not have objections to India importing nuclear fuel.

But more than France’s support for India’s nuclear energy requirements — a known position — it is the eagerness that Sarkozy’s business delegation has demonstrated to supply munitions to India that has surprised the Indian defence establishment.

Charles Edelstennie, a scion of the Dassault family who is a member of the delegation, recalled his company’s old association with the IAF and said 40 Rafale fighter aircraft could be supplied “in a short span of time”.

France and Dassault have not yet exported the Rafale, said to be among the most expensive combat aircraft in its category. In March last year, India contracted 40 additional Sukhoi 30 Mki aircraft from Russia on a fast-track basis.

The IAF bought more than 50 Mirage 2000 aircraft — among the finest in its inventory currently — from Dassault Aviation in the early 1980s. Later, it was in talks to buy a later version of the same aircraft but Dassault cited bureaucratic delays in India in 2005 when it wound up its Mirage assembly line.

France’s offer to sell the Rafale aircraft comes even after its recent frustration over a deal estimated at $650 million to supply 197 helicopters to the Indian Army. The government cancelled the tender on suspicion of foul play after Eurocopter had outraced America’s Bell Textron and had begun price negotiations.

The Indian and French sides signed five agreements after bilateral talks today. One of these was on building and operating a nuclear reactor in France.

“France and India have decided to give a new impetus to their strategic co-operation for development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as an expression of their strategic partnership,” the two sides said in a joint statement released after the talks.

Sarkozy also committed France’s support to a waiver in the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (of which France is a member) for the India-US civilian nuclear deal after an India-specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency was signed.