France's President Emmanuel Macron on Friday accepted India's invitation to be the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations on January 26, news agency PTI quoted 'people familiar with the development' as saying on Friday.
According to the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA),"At the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, will be visiting India as the Chief Guest for the 75th Republic Day celebrations."
"As strategic partners, India and France share a high degree of convergence on a range of regional and global issues. This year, we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the India-France strategic partnership," it said.
While India had invited US President Joe Biden to join the occasion he, however, expressed inability to travel to New Delhi in January.
French President Macron has been invited as the Republic Day chief guest, the people cited above said.
Emmanuel Macron's last visit to India was in September this year when he came to Delhi to attend the grand G20 summit, for which top leaders of 19 countries had descended. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited France to grace the Bastille Day parade on July 14 as the guest of honour.
During their meeting at the G20 summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed their commitment to enhancing the defence cooperation between their countries.
They stressed the importance of collaborating on the design, development, and production of advanced defence systems, even for other nations in the Indo-Pacific region.
During a media briefing, Emmanuel Macron discussed the strategic partnership between India and France and said it goes beyond just bilateral cooperation. Macron emphasised on the importance of both countries collaborating to counter the global trend of increasing fragmentation.
Macron also termed India-France relationship as "highly robust".
