The French East India Company was a commercial enterprise, founded in 1664 to compete with the British and Dutch East India companies. The French failed to reach the Arabian Gulf but the British did. The French didn't go that far anyway, they were in Madagascar and in the Comoro Islands, they succeeded in making their first agreement in 1841 with Oman, a Treaty of Trade and Friendship was signed on November 4th 1844 and ratified in 1846. The treaty allowed a notable development in the relationships between Oman and France, as well as the expansion of a direct trade between the Omani Empire and the metropolitan France. The British managed to prevent France from making such treaty with the rest of the Arabian Gulf states until 1960.In Feb 07, 2004 Some 1,200 French troops took part in war games with the Kuwait's forces aimed at boosting joint military operations Codenamed "Pearl of the West 2004. And on February 23, through March 5, 2008 Forces from France, the UAE and Qatar began their first joint war games, Codenamed Gulf Shield 01 exercise. the French gain a footstep in the area by gaining a French military base in Abu Dhabi 2008 . Gulf States and France signed a number of defence cooperation pacts after the 1991 Gulf War, and they well hold at least one military exercise every year.
Is this a competition between the French East India Company, British East India Company, Dutch East India company and American East India company?
French new that Gulf States were broadening their contacts beyond the United States; President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that France will become the only Western country other than the U.S. to have a permanent defense facility in the Gulf. This move came to support France's claim as a global power capable of playing a role in parts of the world beyond its former colonial sphere of influence, the French is also expanding their commercial and military contacts, and hoping to secure lucrative nuclear energy contracts in the gulf, where they d well offer the services of the French Atomic Energy Commission to look into building the nuclear energy programs, And most important to protect the reactors from air raids.
Is this in the interest of the Arabian Gulf security ?
Harald Muller wrote at the Washington Quarterly . Spring 2008; Arabian Gulf states should be forgiven if they are not amused about the hardly veiled threat by President Jacques Chirac of France when he declared in January 19, 2006, that access to strategically important resources to be a vital interest covered by the nuclear umbrella.
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