External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar held discussions with the French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot on various issues, as the two sides agreed to intensify bilateral cooperation, areas of defence, security, space, and civilian nuclear collaboration. On Friday, Jaishankar expressed India’s deep appreciation to France for its strong condemnation of the cross-border terrorist attack in Pahalgam and Paris for its steadfast support for India’s right to defend itself against terrorism.

In a joint press conference in Marseille, Jaishankar underlined the presence of ‘a high degree of trust’ between India and France over the years as one looks at their relationship and cooperation.

India’s Stance

“It has always been our position that this is not an era where differences should be settled through war. We believe that dialogue and diplomacy is the answer. No solutions are going to come out of the battlefield has always been our position,” said Jaishankar as the two sides also discussed global and regional issues like the current situation in the Middle East, the Ukraine conflict, and the Indo-Pacific security.

“And we spent a little while discussing how between education, research, business and mobility how we can really add new ways of adding more substance to a relationship,” Jaishankar further added.

“Defence, security, space, civilian nuclear cooperation—I think we agreed to intensify all of these through very concrete measures and projects in the time to come… Our triangular development cooperation—how do we take forward some of our trilateral mechanisms? We have one with the UAE and with Australia.”