PM Narendra Modi landed in this Mediterranean French city on Saturday night as part of his week-long tour of France and Slovakia.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared a selfie with French President Emmanuel Macron, highlighting the growing warmth in India-France ties as the two leaders met in the coastal city of Nice during the first leg of the Prime Minister’s visit to France.
Posting the picture on social media on Sunday, PM Modi said it was “nice to have met you in Nice” and described the interaction as productive, adding that the India-France partnership would continue to scale new heights.
“Nice to have met you in Nice. A productive first leg indeed. The India-France partnership will keep scaling new heights. See you in Evian and Paris…,” PM Modi wrote on X.
Earlier, Macron had posted the same selfie with a brief one-word caption “Nice.”
India and France on Sunday set a five-year target to double their annual bilateral trade from the current $16 billion and unveiled an innovation roadmap and a joint artificial intelligence framework to expand ties in critical sectors following talks between PM Modi and President Macron.
The talks between the two leaders yielded 13 outcomes, including a high-speed railway cooperation declaration, a security pact for classified data, and an agreement to expand India’s UPI payment network to the Paris and Nice airports.
PM Modi landed in this Mediterranean French city on Saturday night as part of his week-long tour of France and Slovakia.
“The India-France partnership will keep scaling new heights,” the prime minister said on social media.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the discussions between the two leaders covered the entire range of bilateral relations, including civil nuclear energy, defence, security, space, trade and investment, technology, innovation, education, mobility, and people-to-people ties.
In the meeting, India’s plan to procure 114 Rafale fighter jets from French defence major Dassault Aviation was discussed. Misri said the underlying focus was on having “maximum local content” in joint defence projects.
(With inputs from PTI)
