A VISIT by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin to Paris yesterday was dominated by speculation over whether France will agree a controversial deal to sell a naval assault vessel to Moscow, despite the proposal being greeted with alarm in Georgia and several east European states.
Russia wants to buy a French-built Mistral-class warship, a 21,000-tonne vessel that can carry helicopters and tanks, a move that would represent Russia’s biggest arms purchase from abroad and a break with decades of military self-sufficiency.
Following a meeting with Mr Putin at Rambouillet, near Paris, yesterday, French prime minister François Fillon said a request from the Russian government for the purchase of a Mistral-class ship was being examined.
“France is open to co-operation with Russia, including in defence,” he said.
“We cannot [on the one hand] say that we want an economic and human space between Russia and the European Union . . . and at the same time have reflexes that no longer have anything to do with reality of the situation,” Mr Fillon added.
The sale, which would be the most significant military deal between Russia and a Nato power, has alarmed several former Soviet satellite states, with Lithuania having this week joined fellow Nato members Latvia and Estonia in expressing concern.
Georgia is also known to be anxious about the proposed sale and its implications for any future confrontations in the Caucasus.
"France has broken a taboo that has been inviolable since the creation of the Atlantic alliance," philosopher André Glucksmann said in the daily Le Monde.
“In supplying Putin with weapons for a rapid amphibious assault in Georgia, the Crimea, even the Baltic states, our message is clear: go ahead!”
A series of separate Franco-Russian business deals were agreed during Mr Putin’s visit. The Russian prime minister agreed a deal under which Soviet-era car giant AvtoVAZ, the heavily indebted maker of Lada cars in which Renault has a 25 per cent stake, will receive technology and production assistance from France.
An agreement was also signed for French power firm EDF to take a stake in the South Stream pipeline that will pump gas from Russian fields to Europe.
Hailing the deepening economic ties between the two countries, Mr Putin said: “We are on the way to achieving this goal to transform our good, high-level political relations in the sphere of the real economy. I think it is a real breakthrough in the economic co-operation sphere.”