PM Modi to be French President Macron’s guest of honour at Bastille Day Parade

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend this year’s Bastille Day parade in France. The parade will be held on July 14 in Paris, and PM Modi would be the guest of honour, the Ministry of External Affairs announced.

France President Emmanuel Macron also tweeted about the same in French and Hindi. He said that welcoming PM Modi on the July 14 parade would make him very happy. 

Bastille Day Parade is a military parade held on the morning of July 14 each year since 1880 to mark the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789, in which the revolutionaries seized control of the infamous prison. 

Apart from the Prime Minister, an Indian armed forces’ contingent will also participate in the parade along with their French counterparts. "An Indian armed forces contingent will take part in the parade alongside French forces,” the French presidency said in the statement.  PM Modi's visit will coincide with the 25th anniversary of the "strategic partnership" between France and India.

"This historic visit will also allow joint initiatives to take on the big challenges of our time, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and the achievement of sustainable development targets,” it said. 

The Indo-French Strategic Partnership was launched by the nations on January 26, 1998, when France President Jacques Chirac visited India. Both the nations agreed to draw up a concrete bilateral cooperation in order to maintain peace and global security. The partnership, according to France Diplomacy, is based on close cooperation in the sectors of defence, civil nuclear energy, space and security (cyber security, counter-terrorism, intelligence) as well as an Indo-Pacific component. 

Also read: PM Modi cites 'The Kerala Story' in Karnataka's Ballari, accuses Congress of standing with terrorists