Khurshid will also meet the French President Francois Hollande.

“There are defence cooperation agreements which are in the pipeline. All these issues will be on the table for discussion when the two leaders meet,” said the Spokesperson of the Indian External Affairs Ministry, Syed Akbaruddin.

He said that negotiations for the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant and continuing between India and France. The techno-commercial negotiations for the project are underway and hence it would take some time for finalisation of the negotiations.

“The negotiations on that (Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant) are continuing between France and India; and we hope to have an update on that when we go to Paris,” he said.

When asked about the possible escalation of the cost of the project due to delay and the impact of new liability regime in India, he said : “When techno-commercial negotiations are under way, I think it is not quite appropriate that we start speculating on how much the price will go up. That the price will go up is a known factor because if you have new requirements, it is likely to happen that each requirement entails a cost.”

On sourcing ENR technology from France, the Official Spokesperson said : “We have not had senior level discussions on this at this stage. Maybe when we come back from Paris! And let me tell you ENR is a sophisticated issue which has implications of a variety of things. It is not that we are going in for that now. Again if any of you followed these, these will take more than a decade should this come about. So, let us not discuss this in a very casual manner at this stage. These are issues which are fairly complicated and complex and will take time to work out.”

India and France have a very robust bilateral relationship with the establishment of the strategic partnership in 1998. Bilateral trade in 2011-12 was approximately $ 8.9 billion. There are about 800 or so French companies or their representative offices or other forms of representation in India. More than a 100 Indian companies have their representative offices or subsidiary offices in France.

France is the ninth largest investor in India over a period of a decade or so, from 2000 to 2012. On the other hand, India is fast emerging as a major investor in France. It is the thirteenth largest investor in France over the last five or seven year period. Hence the two leaders are also expected to discuss bilateral trade and investment.

The last visit of a Foreign Minister from France was in 2011 when Alain Juppe had met his then counterpart SM Krishna. Subsequently in July 2012, on the sidelines of the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan, Krishna had met his then counterpart Laurent Fabius. This is of course Salman Khurshid’s first meeting and his first visit to Paris as External Affairs Minister.