FRANCE'S foreign affairs minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has agreed with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to work on a plan to promote “a truly multilateral international order”, the country’s foreign ministry on Saturday (18) said.
The two foreign ministers also agreed during a call between them to deepen the two countries’ strategic partnership, “based on a relationship of political trust between two great sovereign nations of the Indo-Pacific,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Discussed recent developments in the Indo-Pacific and Afghanistan with my friend FM @JY_LeDria. Looking forward to our New York meeting,” Jaishankar tweeted.
On Friday (17), France recalled its ambassadors from the US and Australia after Canberra cancelled a multi-billion-dollar order for French submarines in favour of a partnership with Washington and London in the Indo-Pacific region called AUKUS.
France is also reportedly upset over its exclusion from the alliance.
The French foreign ministry also said the two ministers agreed to meet again in New York next week, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, to work on a common program of concrete actions to jointly defend a truly multilateral international order.
A youth carries an elderly man as they wade through a flooded street after heavy rainfall in Wellampitiya on the outskirts of Colombo on November 30, 2025. The death toll from floods and landslides triggered by Cyclone Ditwah has risen to at least 334 people across Sri Lanka, with nearly 400 still missing, the Disaster Management Centre said on November 30. Getty Images
A man carries his cat across a flooded road in Wellampitiya on the outskirts of Colombo on November 29, 2025. Sri Lanka made an appeal for international assistance on November 29 as the death toll from heavy rains and floods triggered by Cyclone Ditwah rose to 123, with another 130 reported missing. Getty Images