France aims to increase the intake of students from India four-fold and take it to 20,000 students by 2025, say sources.
“The objective assigned by President Emmanuel Macron is clear — 20,000 Indian students in France by 2025. For us to achieve this objective, we must attract, every year, 7500 to 8000 students, and therefore increase the actual numbers by 50%. It is very ambitious. But between India and France, the sky is the limit,” Catherine Colonna, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France said during an interaction with the students of Lady Shri Ram College here.
She said that this year France would welcome more than 5,000 students who had completed their formalities for long-term visa. This number was almost the same as pre-COVID figures in 2019 and indicated the recovery from the impact of COVID-19 on the student intake.
She said her government was expanding the presence of France in India as well as the scope of fields open to Indian students such as its business and engineering schools and public universities.
“We also want to expand the scope of fields open to Indian students . Our business schools are among the best in the world, but so are our engineering schools and our public universities,” she said.
