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Councillor for French Citizens Abroad representing France in Hong Kong and Macau, Marc Guyon, on Friday called for deeper collaboration between France and India on technology and social issues, particularly in emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence, as well as addressing domestic challenges faced by France.
Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the Global Patriots Meet 2025 in New Delhi, Guyon, who is also an advisor to French expatriates for Hong Kong and Macau, praised India's growing global stature and urged stronger bilateral ties. He noted India's influence as part of the BRICS grouping, stating that the country has a "very important role" in developing ties with the member countries, as well as maintaining good relations with Western nations, particularly France. "India plays a very important role in the world order across everything. Today we talked a lot about economics, education, AI, safety, politics, security, and so on. India is part of the BRICS. I think it has to play a very important role in developing relationships with Russia, China, Brazil, and so on, while at the same time maintaining good relations with the Western world, especially France," Guyon said. "I hope France and India can collaborate more on issues like AI and on solving the problems we face in France. We talked about it today, the protest, the unions and so on," he added. Earlier this month, France's Special Envoy for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Anne Bouverot, declared that 2026 will be the year of French-Indian innovation, highlighting the deepening collaboration between the two nations ahead of the AI Impact Summit 2026 to be hosted in India. In an interview with ANI, Bouverot expressed her enthusiasm for the partnership, showing her support for the ties between the two countries in advancing AI development. "2026 will be the year of French-Indian innovation. And that's a great opportunity to get our ecosystems, our startups, to work together," she said. "I'm here to help support this partnership between our two countries in doing that. I think we have a very good alignment between the vision from France and the vision from India that AI needs to be useful for our people, our users, and our citizens. And therefore, I'm very interested in any use cases in agriculture, commerce, education, and healthcare," the special envoy added. The India-AI Impact Summit 2026, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the France AI Action Summit this year, is scheduled to take place from February 19 to February 20 in the national capital and will be the first-ever global AI summit hosted in the Global South. Building on the momentum of leading international forums such as the UK AI Safety Summit, the AI Seoul Summit, the France AI Action Summit, and the Global AI Summit on Africa, this high-level convening marks a critical inflexion point. According to the official website, the summit will strengthen existing multilateral initiatives while advancing new priorities, deliverables, and cooperative frameworks - moving from high-level political statements to demonstrable impact and tangible progress in global AI cooperation. Meanwhile, speaking on India's strengths on the global stage, the Councillor said the country's large population and unique capabilities give it a critical role in shaping global economic, cultural, and technological dynamics, emphasising the importance of exploring areas where India can contribute to the world order, both in terms of innovation and international cooperation. "India has the largest population in the world, and it has a lot of strengths that many countries don't have nowadays, so I think we have to see where India can contribute to the world order in terms of everything, economics, culture and so on," he noted. The Councillor was speaking on the sidelines of the eighth conference of Global Patriots Meet 2025. (ANI)
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