New Delhi: The prime minister, Narendra Modi, has reached France to attend the G7 meeting in Evian, and for a summit meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris, even as a meeting with US the president, Donald Trump, has been scheduled for June 17. Modi was received at the airport in Nice by the French education minister, Edouard Geffray; higher education minister, Philippe Baptiste; French ambassador to India, Thierry Mathou; and the Nice mayor, Eric Ciotti.
“Landed in Nice. In addition to Nice, this French visit includes programmes in Evian and Paris. There will be bilateral and multilateral engagements, which will be aimed at improving India’s friendships with key developmental partners,” Modi posted on X soon after he arrived in France. “I look forward to meeting President Macron tomorrow and to being at ‘Bharat Innovates’,” he added.
In Nice, Modi will meet Macron on Sunday and jointly open the Bharat Innovates event for startups and venture capitalists from both nations. The two leaders would also review the entire gamut of bilateral ties, which was elevated to a special global strategic partnership earlier this year. Modi would travel to Slovakia from Nice for a bilateral visit on June 14 and 15, when he would hold talks with the Slovakian president, Peter Pellegrini, and prime minister, Robert Fico, at Bratislava.
Modi would return to France and attend the G7 meeting at Evian on June 16 and 17, before heading to Paris on June 18 to meet with Macron once again and jointly attend VivaTech 2026. VivaTech is Europe’s foremost technology and innovation event, and India will have the largest national pavilion at this edition, underscoring the growing potential for cooperation between Indian and European innovation ecosystems.
Ahead of the G7 Summit, Modi said India would not only speak for itself but also voice the aspirations of the Global South. In his departure statement before the week-long visit to France and Slovakia, the prime minister said India’s participation in the grouping reflected the trust placed in the country by its partners and its growing global stature.
Modi to meet Trump at Evian
Meanwhile, the White House announced in Washington that Trump would hold a bilateral meeting with Modi on the G7 summit side lines in Evian. The two leaders are expected to discuss a bilateral trade agreement, the key focus of their relationship at this point. Modi may also raise the issue of the killing of Indian seafarers in attacks on cargo ships by the US forces in the Gulf region.
“We signed a joint framework agreement earlier this year and have been engaged in intensive negotiations with India over the past year,” a US official told the media at the White House. The official added that India and the United States are natural economic partners with significant potential to expand bilateral trade, noting opportunities for increased US exports to India in energy, industrial goods, and select agricultural products.
“Prime Minister Modi is quite ambitious about the role he envisions for India and the importance of the US–India relationship,” the White House official said. The official also noted that Trump wouldn’t agree to a deal unless “it is a very good deal,” adding that the agreement is unlikely to be finalized during the G7 meeting. “We believe a very good deal is possible. Further technical discussions are required, but the leaders will have an opportunity to take stock of where things stand and how forward-leaning both sides are willing to be in closing the deal in the coming weeks,” the official added.
The Trump-Modi meeting in Evian would be their first since February 2025, when the Indian prime minister had visited the US. The bonhomie displayed by the two leaders in February 2025 evaporated by May that year after India attacked Pakistan during Operation Sindoor to avenge the April terror attacks in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, that killed 26 civilians.
Trump repeatedly claimed he intervened to stop the India-Pakistan war from escalating into a nuclear war in South Asia, a claim Islamabad happily endorsed, but New Delhi rejected completely, saying the war stopped after the Pakistani military appealed for it after the May 10 hammering by Indian forces on their air force and army bases.
Trump had also imposed steep additional tariffs on Indian goods, and the India-US relationship began plummeting. Trump was also upset with Modi for his friendship with Russian president Vladimir Putin and for buying Russian oil and weapon systems, including the S-400 air defence missiles.
Last week, the ties again came under strain after the US Navy attacked at least three cargo ships, operated by Indian seafarers, in the Gulf of Oman, disabling them and killing three Indian sailors, particularly on the oil tanker MT Settebello. India has strongly condemned the killing of Indian sailors and the attack on commercial vessels in the Gulf region, even summoning the US embassy’s charge d’affaires, Jason Meeks, twice last week to protest.