Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated French President Emmanuel Macron on winning his second term in office on Sunday. Macron, a leader of En Marche, a liberal political party, defeated Marine Le Pen, a far-right political who leads the National Rally.

“Congratulations to my friend @EmmanuelMacron on being re-elected as the President of France! I look forward to continue working together to deepen the India-France Strategic Partnership,” the Indian prime minister tweeted.

 Macron’s re-election comes a month before the Indian prime minister is scheduled to fly to Europe and hold talks with the French president and the new German chancellor Olaf Scholz.

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India and France have had a deep strategic partnership in the defence sector as well as technology. Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, at a virtual event earlier this year, had said, “It is very easy to talk about concepts like strategic partnership…Yesterday, we saw the French aircraft flying at the finale of the Republic Day Parade. I mention this because it is a visible example of the strategic bond between India and France.”

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Jaishankar added that the relationship between the two has “steadily matured.”

“It’s something that goes back multiple decades. After our nuclear test, France was one of the earliest countries with whom we engaged in a positive format,” the minister said.

“There is defence, there is nuclear and space, France has been a long-standing partner, a good partner, a reliable partner with whom, certainly it is the desire of our government to grow the relationship and take it to the next level,” said Jaishankar.

At the India-France strategic dialogue held last year, the two countries agreed to bolster their defence and security partnership by pursuing new initiatives in domains of space, military, maritime and intelligence.

“They agreed to strengthen bilateral defence and security partnership through enhanced intelligence and information sharing, operational cooperation, bolstering mutual capabilities, expanding bilateral exercises and pursuing new initiatives in maritime, space and cyber domains,” the Indian embassy said.