PM Modi is the first leader President Macron meets after re-election

Even though Modi has a short halt at Paris while enroute to India, the visit is expected to yield significant results with Macron expected to make a substantial visit to India soon to carry forward the implementation of strategic ideas discussed between the two on Wednesday.

Updated on: May 3, 2022, 15:16:53 IST

By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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It is an unwritten convention that the French President elect makes his first international trip to neighboring Germany to strengthen the Franco-German alliance and expand the European footprint. Socialist President Francois Hollande jetted off to Berlin to meet then German Chancellor Angela Merkel soon after he was elected President on May 15, 2012. His able successor Emmanuel Macron did the same five years later when he flew down to meet Chancellor Merkel in 2017. But this time there is a slight change in plans though Germany remains a very close partner of France, like the US and its ally UK.

The way forward : Prime minister Narendra Modi with French President Emmanuel Macron.

On Wednesday, the first international visitor that President Macron will physically meet after winning the French election on April 24 is none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is winging down from Copenhagen to especially meet his friend at the Elysée Palace for one-to-one dialogue and delegation level talks built around a dinner. PM Modi is expected to be in France for around four to five hours.

Even though PM Modi has a short halt at Paris while enroute to India, the visit is expected to yield significant results with President Macron expected to make a substantial visit to India soon to carry forward the implementation of strategic ideas discussed between the two on Wednesday. The preparations of the visit have already begun in Paris with the agenda of talks being shared through the diplomatic channel. A joint statement of the bilateral meeting is expected to be released after PM Modi’s meeting with President Macron.

Also Read | Modi-Macron meet will take India-France relations to next level

While the on-going brutal war in Ukraine will figure in the discussions between the two leaders, both countries want immediate cessation of violence, and have independently talked to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin about restoring peace in the region. The other important topic for discussion would be the Indo-Pacific with both countries cooperating together to secure the sea lanes of communication from any military leverage being exercised by rising China with unconfirmed reports indicating that China has tested a cruiser warship launched conventional ballistic missile.

India and France have robust defence cooperation with Paris helping the Indian Navy build Scorpene class submarines and supplying 36 Rafale fighter planes to the Indian Air Force. As of now 35 fighters have already been supplied to India with the last one being used to test India specific enhancements and weaponry in France. Fact is that France is willing to not only manufacture Safran aircraft engines in India but also hi-tech air to air and air to surface precision missiles.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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