Knighthood in France's Legion of Honour was conferred on Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder of Bharti Enterprises, at a ceremony on Monday, 12 October — recognition tied, per an official statement, to nearly three decades of work he put into building trade and investment ties between India and France. Established as the nation's foremost decoration for civilian achievement, the Legion of Honour carries a distinction no other such accolade in the country holds.
The insignia presentation for Mittal was scheduled to take place at the French Embassy in New Delhi on Wednesday, 28 October. The announcement attributed the conferral of the honour to French President Emmanuel Macron.
The French side noted that Mittal's three-decade association with France dated to Airtel's founding years in 1992, describing that long-standing connection as the basis for the recognition. Expressing gratitude for the decoration, Mittal described the honour as both moving and humbling, and pledged to work toward strengthening commercial relations between India and France.
That connection traces back to 1992, when Compagnie Generale des Eaux, acting through Societe Francaise du Radiotelephone, partnered with Bharti to introduce mobile telephony to the country. Bharti Airtel — the company that grew out of that venture — now serves a subscriber base of more than 650 million people spread across India, South Asia, and Africa, placing it among the two largest mobile operators on the planet by customer count, according to the statement.
Mittal also serves as co-chairman of Eutelsat, a satellite communications company headquartered in Paris. In 2020, a consortium drawing together the UK government and various other investors moved to restore OneWeb to operation, with him at the helm. A merger finalised in 2023 brought OneWeb and Eutelsat together under a single corporate structure, positioning the combined entity as the first operator anywhere to run both geostationary and low-Earth-orbit satellite fleets within one integrated business.
A 551-million-euro commitment to Eutelsat's capital-raising round, made by the French state during November 2025, left it holding a 29.65% ownership stake — enough to place it at the top of the satellite operator's shareholder register. Bharti Space Limited joined the round as well, holding an 17.88% stake that kept it positioned as the single largest shareholder outside state hands.
Prior to this, in 2024, King Charles III had conferred upon Mittal the Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire — a distinction that made him the first holder of Indian citizenship to carry that honour.
