French President Emmanuel Macron promised to shore up military ties with India and speed up a mammoth nuclear project that promises to light up 70 million homes.
Macron was among the final G20 leaders to visit rain-swept Delhi for the 8-10 September forum summit. After talks with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi he left for Bangladesh on Monday.
“We discussed a series of topics and look forward to ensuring India-France relations scale new heights of progress”, Modi said on X.
Macron’s trip came two months after the Indian leader visited Paris as chief guest of the French National Day celebrations on 14 July.
All eyes on Modi-Macron bilateral meet!
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The two countries which have cranked up bilateral relations since the 2008 purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets by India worth eight billion euros vowed to strengthen ties and remove hurdles holding up the nuclear project in Maharashtra state.
Geopolitical problems
The project worth 8.6 billion euros is billed as the world’s largest atomic plant and will potentially meet the energy needs of 70 million homes and cut emissions by 80 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Earlier this month, India said it was ”earnestly” trying to resolve the problems related to nuclear liability laws.
"Much of the conflict of views on the two sides happened because of geopolitical reasons,” Atomic Energy Minister Jitendra Singh said and added: We, very earnestly, are trying to sort it out and we are moving forward.”
In their joint statement, India and France hailed moves to collaborate on small modular reactors as well as advanced reactors.
“They welcomed the continuing engagement of both sides to expand bilateral cooperation to establish a partnership for co-developing small and advanced modular reactor technologies,” the joint statement said.
'Ambitious' roadmap
Macron and Modi favoured an earlier defence industrial roadmap to boost cooperation.
“Both leaders reiterated their commitment to strengthen the defence cooperation through partnership in design, development, testing and manufacture of advanced defence technologies and platforms and expand production in India, including for third countries,” it said.
The decision comes amid increasing attempts by China to flex its muscle in the Indo-Pacific, an attempt that has alarmed India and several other countries.
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France has emerged the frontrunner to supply 26 maritime Rafale jets for a newly-built Indian aircraft carrier. France is also in the chase to outfit heavy-lift air force helicopters and has signed a pact with state shipbuilders to build naval ships.
India is setting up a “technical office” in its embassy in Paris to rev up military trade deals with Macron’s government, officials told RFI.
Indian moonwalk
Macron congratulated Modi for the successful Indian mission to the moon, officials said and added that French space-related bodies will bolster cooperation with their Indian counterparts.
“The two leaders recalled six decades of India-France space cooperation and reviewed the progress since holding of the first strategic space dialogue in June 2023,” the statement said.
“India and France will work to strengthen their synergies in terms of sovereign access to space and the development of forward-looking technologies to boost the resilience of access to space with involvement of their space industries,” it added.
Last month, India landed a spacecraft on the moon’s south pole and grabbed global attention 10 days later when it sent an observatory to the Sun’s distant periphery.
Asia-Pacific and France
On Monday evening Macron reaching Dhaka told Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina that his visit aimed to counter China’s ever-growing “new imperialism” in the Asia-pacific region.
“Based on democratic principles and the rule of law, in a region facing new imperialism, we want to propose a third way – with no intention to bully our partners or to lead them to an unsustainable scheme,” Macron told Hasina in English.
“We find you to be a breath of fresh air in international politics,” Hasina commented over state dinner for Macron in Dhaka after which he returned to Paris.
