Over 200 French firms are currently functioning throughout Karnataka state in industries like aerospace, IT, healthcare, and sustainable mobility, according to authorities at a Bengaluru event on Thursday, demonstrating the strengthening of India and France’s strategic technological alliance.
According to French Consul General Marc Lamy, long-term goals and shared principles, not immediate benefits, are the foundation of India-France ties. “The partnership between France and India is one of the pillars of international stability and progress in the 21st century. It’s not transactional. It is transformational,” Lamy said at La French Tech India AI Summit 2025.
“India is becoming one of the world’s great technological powers. Its scale, talent, and digital infrastructure—we see it clearly here in Bangalore, a city that is writing the future in code and algorithm,” he added.
Additionally, Lamy declared 2026 to be the India-France Year of Innovation, with an emphasis on collaborative advancements in the fields of artificial intelligence, aerospace, health, food, sustainability, and the creative industries.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s February trip to France and the AI Action Summit in Paris, a joint declaration on AI first suggested the year of innovation.
Ten firms have been chosen to take part in an international acceleration program in Paris as part of this plan by the IndiaAI Mission, the country’s AI endeavor. The four-month program, which is run in partnership with HEC Paris and Station F, the largest startup campus in the world, aims to assist Indian entrepreneurs in expanding internationally and breaking into the European market.
“The AI Action Summit earlier this year was the first catalyst of this AI partnership between France and India,” Charlotte De Beauregard, Director of Media and Tech Industry at Capgemini and Co-chair of La French Tech India told BW Businessworld. “We wanted to bring the conversation from high-level government dialogue to what happens between startups, VCs and corporations here in Bengaluru on the ground, where tech happens in India.”
The La French Tech India program, according to De Beauregard, aims to support the French startup scene in India while also assisting Indian business owners in navigating the French and larger European markets. “India is an extremely promising market. Talent is accessible and business perspectives are vast,” she said. “With 25,000 startups in the French ecosystem, including 1,000 in AI, our role is to create bridges and ensure mutual visibility.”
Expanding Beyond Large Corporations
According to sources, the French computer behemoth Capgemini has over 1,75,000 employees in India. A new in-flight entertainment and services laboratory was established this week in Bengaluru by Thales, a defense and aerospace corporation that has been doing business in the nation since 1953. In order to produce Rafale fighter aircraft fuselages for India and other international markets, Dassault Aviation and Tata Advanced Systems Limited inked four Production Transfer Agreements on Monday. These trends demonstrate how quickly multinational corporations are increasing their Indo-French collaboration across a variety of areas.
France is now searching for new ways to assist its SMEs and startups in entering the Indian market.
“The French business presence in India has been there for the longest time, in terms of the large French companies, the largest capitalisation, we call them CAC 40,” said Souad Tenfiche, CEO at Link Innovations and Co-chair of La French Tech India said, citing companies like Total Energy, Capgemini and L’Oreal. “So right now what we are trying to do is to open the Indian market to SMEs, scale ups and smaller companies. We want them to understand that the Indian market is addressable, regardless of size and are giving them a curated network of Indian partners to build operations here.”
“Given the geopolitical situation today, France offers a gateway to Europe for Indian companies as well,” she added. “We are translating the diplomatic will between President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Modi into ground-level action.”
Local Partnerships
Officials from Bengaluru also emphasized the significance of greater collaboration. Karnataka Digital Economy Mission (KDEM) Vice President Ajay Krishnan discussed the ongoing partnership between France’s PariSanté Campus and Bengaluru’s C-CAMP, which together created the Indo-French Life Sciences Sister Innovation Hub.
“This collaboration focuses on one health and digital health technologies, aiming to foster links between science-based entrepreneurship, research, and business,” Krishnan said. “We have a lot more to do in AI and microelectronics. India is poised to come to the forefront.”
Dr. Gaurav Agarwal, Vice President and Chief AI Scientist at Reliance Jio, called for frequent interactions between the two ecosystems. “We just need more such events, more connect and organically people will realise the complementarity,” he said. “If nothing else, the two ecosystems put together are bigger. There’s more money and more innovation when we join forces.”
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