Indian Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi, currently on a four-day visit to France, is set to travel to Marseille on Tuesday to visit the 3rd Division of the French Army, the defence ministry said in a statement.
During his visit, he will be briefed on Exercise Shakti, a biennial training event conducted alternately in India and France, as well as on SCORPION, the French Army’s modernization programme.
On Wednesday, General Dwivedi will visit the Carpiagne military base, where he will observe a dynamic demonstration of the Scorpion Division, including live-fire exercises.
The following day, he will pay tribute to Indian soldiers who fought in World War I by laying a wreath at the Neuve Chapelle Indian War Memorial.
General Dwivedi will later deliver a lecture at the École de Guerre, the French Joint Staff College, discussing modern warfare and India’s strategic vision.
According to the defence ministry, the primary goal of General Dwivedi’s visit is to strengthen military cooperation between India and France, explore new avenues of collaboration, and further enhance the strategic partnerships between the two nations’ armed forces.
On Monday, General Dwivedi held talks with French Army Chief General Pierre Schill and met with senior French military officials in Paris. He also visited the prestigious École Militaire, where he was briefed on the Future Combat Command (CCF), and attended briefings at the Technical Section of the French Army (STAT) and the Battle Lab Terre in Versailles.
General Dwivedi’s visit follows closely after the India-France Bilateral Dialogue on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, held in Paris on February 14.
During the dialogue, both nations discussed developments in disarmament and non-proliferation related to nuclear, chemical, and biological domains, as well as outer space security, conventional weapons, artificial intelligence (AI) in the military domain, lethal autonomous weapons systems, and multilateral export control regimes.