Prime Minister Manmohan Singh left here for home on Tuesday night at the end of his nine-day visit to the US and France, during which the landmark nuclear cooperation agreement was signed with the latter.
The prime minister's engagements included India-EU summit talks with French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who holds the rotating Presidency of the EU.
France is the first country to open nuclear commerce with India in 34 years after the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) granted a waiver to New Delhi on September 6.
After inking the first civilian nuclear agreement with the country today, India assured its European partners that it plans to enter into similar pacts with them in future.
Singh could not ink a similar nuclear agreement with President George W Bush in Washington in the absence of a Congressional nod to the 123 agreement with India.
"Today we signed a bilateral agreement in this area with France and we expect to finalise agreements with other European partners too," Singh assured CEOs of major European companies while addressing the India-EU Business Summit.
While the Indo-US nuclear deal is still winding its way through the US Congress, Singh said India has opened up its civil nuclear commerce sector for foreign collaboration.
Singh also raised with President Nicolas Sarkozy the matter of a ban on students wearing turban to schools in France, an issue which had triggered an outcry among the Sikh community here.
The two countries also agreed to bolster bilateral defence ties by working on joint development of quick reaction short range surface-to-air missiles (SRSAM) and concluding a crucial deal on upgradation of IAF's frontline Mirage 2000 fighters.
