Macron Announces Streamlined Visa Process
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday announced that France will streamline visa and sourcing procedures for Indian students and expand the availability of courses to be taught in English, as he attended high-level academic and scientific meetings on the future of Indo-French cooperation in the national capital.
Speaking at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) campus, President Macron underlined France’s commitment to strengthening educational ties with India and significantly increasing student mobility between the two countries.
“We want to welcome more Indian students and have more French students coming here. We are currently speaking about 10,000 per year. We have decided with Prime Minister Modi to increase this number to 30,000 per year by 2030. From the French side, we will simplify the sourcing and the visa process,” Macron said.
He further assured that France would streamline procedures to make them more practical and aligned with students’ expectations.
During his time there, President Macron, along with Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare JP Nadda, inaugurated the Indo-French Campus on AI in Global Health at AIIMS.
The initiative marks a significant step in strengthening India-France collaboration in artificial intelligence-driven healthcare solutions.
Highlighting France’s academic strengths, Macron said Indian students choosing France would have access to world-class teaching and leading research centres with strong interdisciplinary collaboration and also emphasised that France would offer diverse academic programmes in English to make higher education more accessible for Indian students.
“We will clearly streamline the approach in order to meet expectations and make it much more practical for students. We will establish better connections in order to support students more effectively,” the French President said.
“I would also like to tell all Indian students who come to France that we have best-in-class teaching and access to research centres with strong interdisciplinary collaboration. I want you to be sure that we can offer you different approaches in English,” he added.
The Indo-French Campus at AIIMS aims to advance research, innovation and capacity building in AI for global health while fostering deeper academic excellence and international partnerships between the two nations. (ANI)
