India rolls out red carpet for Macron as France eyes trade deals

Eastern Eye25 Jan, 2024News

Macron will be offered a red carpet welcome by prime minister Narendra Modi with dinner in a 19th-century maharaja?s palace, and as chief guest at a military march past with massed ranks of tanks, dancing troupes, camel cavalry and a fighter jet fly-past. India?s foreign ministry says New Delhi and Paris are ?strategic partners?, while the French presidency says the trip will ?consolidate and deepen diplomatic and economic relations?. Despite concerns over human rights, differences over the war in Ukraine and close ties with Moscow ? India?s key military supplier ? Western democracies are courting New Delhi as a military and economic counterweight to China.