The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, visited southern France with a full schedule on Wednesday, promoting a relationship that Paris sees as an alternative to the great rivalries of power.
Macron led Modi to dinner at the picturesque southern city of Cassis on Tuesday, before Wednesday’s visit to the Mediterranean coast and the second largest city in France, Marseille.
They began the day with a tribute to the Indian soldiers who died in France during World War I in the Milargues Military Cemetery to the south of Marseille. Then they inaugurated the new general consulate of the Consulate of India in Marseille, an event that attracted a small multitude of Indians that light.
Then came the time for business, with a visit to the global freight company is CMA CGM.
Both leaders have been discussing a project called East-Europe Economic Corridor of India-Middle (IMEC), a railroad and a maritime corridor between India and Europe through the Middle East destined to rival the Belt and Road initiative of China.
“We see the relevance of () IMEC project,” Macron said during the visit. “Marseille can be clearly the entrance point for the entire European market.”
At the end of a French-Indian business forum, Macron had already praised IMEC as a “fabulous catalyst” for “concrete projects and investments.” Paris also hopes to sell billions of dollars in Rafale combat aircraft to the Navy of India, as well as submarines of the Scorpene class.
And Macron points to greater cooperation with India in the nuclear energy sector, especially with the development of small modular reactors (SMR).
‘Acting like a bridge’
Wednesday’s schedule included a visit to the Experimental Iter Nuclear Fusion Installation (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), an international project aimed at the generation of energy of the next level, in which France and India are involved, as well as the United States, Russia and China.
“These countries face tensions in geopolitics, but here they are working together,” said the general director of the site, Pietro Barrabaschi. “Here everyone leaves their passport at the door,” he said AFP.
Modi has visited France during the high profile events before, even for the traditional Bastille Day Parade in 2023 and the Summit of Organized by France this week on Artificial Intelligence.
Macron said the weekend that the relationship with the Prime Minister of India is part of France’s strategy to seek an alternative to the rivalry of superpower between the United States and China.
“India and France are two great powers that are very aligned in our desire to work with the United States of America and work with China, but we don’t want to depend on anyone,” Macron said on French television. “We want to be independent.”
A former French government minister, who asked not to be identified, said AFP that Macron had “the correct intuition” because “Modi, which leads an emerging power, has found a balanced position among Americans, Chinese and Russians.”
However, some observers highlight the political dangers for Macron in Sidling until Modi, who is very criticized for his ultranationalist Hindu agenda and his supposed autocratic position at home.
“The idea of acting as a bridge between the North and the South is a constant in the rhetoric of France,” said Bertrand Badie, a specialist in international relations at the University of Science Sciences. “But this forces Macron to remain silent with domestic policies” pursued by Modi, he said.
Modi left France early in the afternoon for Washington, where he will meet with US president Donald Trump.
