Anil Ambani’s Reliance Entertainment entered into a deal to produce a film with actor Julie Gayet then French President Francois Hollande’s partner and — the announcement was made on January 24, 2016 — two days before India and France signed the MoU for the purchase of 36 jets in flyaway condition.
Later in 2016, Ambani’s company Reliance Defence became a part of the offset programme of the Rs 59,000-crore Rafale deal through Dassault Reliance Aerospace Ltd (DRAL), in which it holds a 51 per cent stake, while Dassault Aviation, the French manufacturer of Rafale, holds 49 per cent stake in DRAL, The Indian Express reported.
Back in 2015, when Modi first announced, alongside Hollande, that India would procure 36 Rafale jets under a government-to-government deal, during his visit to France in April 2015, Ambani was present in Paris.
The film
Reliance entered into an agreement with Gayet’s firm, Rouge International, to jointly produce a French film Tout La-Haut, which was directed by French actor and film-maker Serge Hazanavicius and was released in France on December 20, 2017.
According to the Express report, it was first screened at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain in 2017, was distributed in eight other countries including the UAE, Taiwan, Lebanon, Belgium, Estonia and Latvia. However, it has not been released in India.
The film released eight weeks after Dassault Aviation chairman Eric Trappier and Ambani laid the foundation stone for DRAL manufacturing facility in Nagpur.
Why would Ambani invest in a film which involves the French president’s wife that is not even released in India? Ambani’s company refused to answer IE.
The controversy
Rafale was the first major project won by Reliance Defence, a company without any defence manufacturing experience. Opposition parties, including the Congress, have alleged that undue favours had been granted to Ambani’s firm in this deal.
The Congress party also alleges that Ambani’s company was favoured at the cost of public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bangalore which was to make the aircraft in India in the earlier 126 aircraft deal scrapped by the Modi government.
