France to Facilitate Student Exchange Programme with India

Sonia Barbry fell in love with India and its culture when she came to study here. Now working with Consul General of France in Mumbai is all set to bring more Indian students to her country. Besides focusing on business relations, their target is to increase the number of students studying in France to 20,000 by 2025.

Sonia Barbry told PTI that two of the countries have a very good strategic partnership and now, France wants to focus on economic and human ties. She expressed that they want more students from India to study in France.

Talking about the historical statistics, she informed the news agency that there were about 3,000 students from India in France 5 years ago, but now, the number has gone up to 10,000. She explained that the target is to touch the number of 20,000 Indian students studying in France by 2025.

She said that she strongly believes in student exchange programmes as a tool to strengthen ties between the two countries. She expressed that it all started when she fell in love with India when she came here to study at 18 years of age.

She, recalling her memories of her study days, said that she came to India for doing compulsory internships. After 6 months of internship she came back and expressed her will to her parents to come back to India in future.

A religious learner of art, Sonia came back to India less than 1 year after and took admissions in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and learned Bharatnatyam, Dhrupad, Hindi and Yoga. She informed that she was appointed in BHU to teach French language and while on her tenure, she learnt more about Indian culture, traditions and scriptures. She developed a special interest in Kashmiri Shaivism which is a branch of Hindu philosophy like Vedic Adwaita which belives in Monolithic God. She then went back to France to complete her higher studies after which, she joined foreign services.

As a consul general of France in India, she told that she has a 22-years long association with the country. She informed that she has been closely working on the issues of South East Asia as well. She added that France has an open nature and welcomes students and people from all areas.

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She hopefully said that they are also working to increase business ties which are already in good shape but there is always a scope to do better. She held a meeting with Mr Vijay Rupani, the chief minister of Gujarat on her recent trip in India. She informed that 50 French companies have their presence in Gujarat and France wants to expand their investments here. The French delegation previously participated in the Vibrant Gujarat Summit which took place earlier. She explained that the Agence Francaise de Development (AFD) will extend help in the Surat Metro Project as well.

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With a bunch of development proposals in Education, Business and Diplomatic Relationships between the two countries, Sonia Barbry is hopeful that the two countries will get to a new height of friendship and trade.

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