With the cultural, historical and familial ties between the UK and India, there is no way Macron should even be able to try to make a play such as this... but he is... 1/2
... and that is partly because with a slump in visas given by UK to Indian students since 2010, France has decided to try to step in...
Indian Government was highly surprised that instead of tying some sort of post Brexit trade deal to better and more student and business visas, UK Govt, even at PM level has raised issues such as visa overstayers as the priority - here are the 2010-2016 numbers 
political argument over student visas can be argued up or down, but Indian student visa policy not coherent with “Global Britain” rhetoric, and just the sort of “trade” dealing with fast growing emerging giant with totally unconstrained in doing right now regardless of A50 etc
Probably the sort of thing that would oil trade dealings with New Delhi would be the opposite - a massive [Nehru? Gandhi?] scholarship programme for young Indians to come to UK universities plus visas. But Macron has done that instead...
And Foreign Secretary responded to Macron with the very latest numbers, ticking back up having been cut back hugely - long known to be a supporter of more student visas, exempting from migration numbers
