Macron, Modi And Trump: At G7, India Balances A Steady Paris And A Strained Washington

Sanbeer Singh Ranhotra

The US remains indispensable to India in ways France is not — economically, strategically & technologically. But France currently offers something Washington does not: consistency.

Narendra Modi arrives at Évian carrying two very different political scripts.

In France, he is the guest President Emmanuel Macron wants to showcase: a leader from a country Paris has decided to treat not as a useful middle power, but as a central one. In his meeting with Donald Trump, Modi is something else — a partner Washington still needs, even as the relationship has been badly singed by the killing of three Indian sailors in American attacks on merchant shipping in the Gulf of Oman.

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That contrast is the real story of this visit.

The easy headline is the Trump meeting. It will get the cameras, the body language analysis and the instant overreading. But the steadier, more consequential track may be the French one. Since Macron’s February visit to India, New Delhi and Paris have moved with unusual clarity. The relationship now has a new label — “Special Global Strategic Partnership" — but, more importantly, it has new machinery underneath it. That matters more than the branding.

The February visit produced movement across defence, trade and critical minerals. It also saw the inauguration of the Airbus-Tata H125 helicopter assembly line in India, a small but telling marker of where this........

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