France says to work with India to promote multilateral order

PARIS - France's foreign affairs minister agreed with his Indian counterpart to work on a programme to promote "a truly multilateral international order," the French foreign ministry said on Saturday.

Jean-Yves Le Drian and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also agreed during a call to deepen their strategic partnership, "based on a relationship of political trust between two great sovereign nations of the Indo-Pacific," the ministry said in a statement.

France on Friday recalled its ambassadors from the United States and Australia after Canberra ditched a multi-billion-dollar order for French submarines in favour of a partnership with Washington and London in the Indo-Pacific region.