India and France on Tuesday upgraded the bilateral relationship to a Special Global Strategic Partnership, prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to describe it as a collaboration that knows no boundaries.
"It can reach from deep oceans to the tallest mountain," he said.
Announcing this in his statement to the media after a bilateral engagement with French President Emmanuel Macron and his delegation in Mumbai, the Prime Minister added: "This partnership is not just strategic. In today’s age of immense churn, this is a partnership for global stability and progress."
Posting the decision to elevate the bilateral relationship to a Special Global Strategic Partnership on his X handle, Macron said: "In diplomacy, that means a great deal."
After the bilateral engagement at Lok Bhavan, the two leaders drove together to their other joint events in the city in another edition of carpool diplomacy that the Prime Minister is increasingly engaging in with a select group of visiting dignitaries.
To facilitate investments, trade and mobility, the two sides have concluded an amending protocol on the Double Tax Avoidance Agreement between India and France.
While both leaders spoke about the need to fight terrorism in all its forms, the Prime Minister said India and France would continue to support every effort to restore peace in Ukraine, West Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
The difference in approach — particularly on Ukraine — was evident with Macron stressing the need for the two countries to work together to end the targeted attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Stating that France was in favour of transferring more technology to India, Macron advocated strategic autonomy and the need to address hegemonic tendencies.
The two leaders launched the India-France Year of Innovation and Innovation Network. They remotely inaugurated the H125 Helicopter Final Assembly Line (FAL) at Vemagal in Kolar, Karnataka. This is a facility to manufacture Airbus’s H125 helicopters. The FAL has been set up by Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) in partnership with the European aerospace corporation, Airbus.
During the bilateral, the two countries also renewed the agreement on defence cooperation to facilitate the co-design, co-development and co-production of defence platforms, finalised a joint venture between Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Safran to produce HAMMER missiles in India, and agreed on reciprocal deployment of officers at Indian Army and French Land Forces establishments.
Macron is scheduled to travel to Delhi to attend the ongoing AI Impact Summit, the fourth in the series of artificial intelligence global summits that have been organised for four years running. The previous editions were organised in South Korea, the UK and France.
Before meeting the Prime Minister, Macron went on a jog along the marine drive with a small security detail before paying tributes to those killed in the Mumbai terror attack — two of the victims were French — at the Taj Mahal Palace. He had lunch with film industry members, where he advocated co-productions.