Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron jointly inaugurated Bharat Innovates 2026 in Nice on 14 June 2026, opening a three-day showcase of India's deep-tech startups with a set of addresses that cast the country as an emerging innovation partner for the world.
The maiden edition, an initiative of the Union Ministry of Education organised by the Government of India, is the first time India's deep-tech cohort has been presented on a dedicated stage abroad, and it anchors the India-France Year of Innovation.
Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal opened proceedings with the welcome remarks, inviting French partners to invest, design and manufacture in India for both its domestic market and exports, and describing the country as the world's innovation partner powered by more than 2.3 lakh startups.
In his special address, Macron reaffirmed France's belief in India's capacity to innovate, pointing to its demographic strength and its deep pool of engineers, and restated France's support for Make in India.
He set out areas for deeper work together, from artificial intelligence and clean energy to civil nuclear technology and small modular reactors, and repeated the goal of welcoming 30,000 Indian students to France by 2030.
