‘India Absolutely Needed As Permanent Member’: France Reiterates Backing For UNSC Expansion

France today underscored the need for India and nations like Germany, Brazil and Japan to be inducted as permanent members in a reformed and enlarged United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to better reflect contemporary geopolitical realities, reports Business Today.

France's Permanent Representative to the UN Francois Delattre made it clear that induction of these key members to the UN high-table is among France's 'strategic' priorities. France has maintained that if the crises of recent times have confirmed the centrality of the UN, they have also reinforced the need to make the organisation more effective and more representative of the current balances in the world.

India is at the forefront of efforts at the UN to push for the long-pending reform of the Security Council, emphasising that it rightly deserves a place at the UN high table as a permanent member.

India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, speaking at the informal meeting of the Plenary on the Intergovernmental negotiations earlier this year (2019) had said that a total of 113 member states out of 122 who submitted their positions in the framework document, support expansion in both of the existing categories specified in the charter.