French President Macron Announces Streamlined Visa Process, Courses to be Taught in English for Indian Students

New Delhi: In a major push to deepen educational ties, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Wednesday that France will overhaul its visa procedures and expand English-language curricula to attract a new wave of 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.

Speaking at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Macron outlined an ambitious roadmap to triple current student mobility, aiming to host 30,000 Indian students annually by 2030, up from the current 10,000.

Key Initiatives Announced

-France will simplify "sourcing" and visa application processes to make them more practical and student-friendly.

-To remove the language barrier, French universities will increase the availability of diverse academic programs taught entirely in English.

Macron, alongside Union Health Minister JP Nadda, inaugurated the Indo-French Campus on AI in Global Health. This hub at AIIMS is designed to spearhead research in artificial intelligence-driven medical solutions.

"We want to welcome more Indian students... We have decided with Prime Minister Modi to increase this number to 30,000 per year by 2030," Macron stated, emphasizing that the new approach is designed to meet the modern expectations of international applicants.

World-Class Research and Collaboration

The President highlighted that Indian students in France would gain access to "best-in-class" teaching and interdisciplinary research centers. The new AI campus at AIIMS serves as a flagship for this vision, focusing on innovation, capacity building and academic excellence through:

-Developing cutting-edge AI health tech.

-Training the next generation of medical and tech experts.

-Fostering long-term institutional partnerships between Paris and New Delhi.

By aligning French academic strengths with Indian talent, the initiative seeks to build a robust scientific bridge between the two nations, ensuring that language no longer acts as a hurdle for world-class education.

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