Macron defends French interests in South Pacific on three-nation tour

President Emmanuel Macron's visit to the South Pacific is a bid to make France’s voice heard in a region shaping up to be a prime geopolitical battleground between China and the US. It coincides with massive joint war games with the US, Australian and French military. 

French President Emmanuel Macron (R) shakes hands with New Caledonia's President Louis Mapou (C) at a Bir-Hakeim ceremony in Noumea on July 25, 2023. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Macron’s trip to New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu started Monday and comes as French forces take part in massive US-Australian-led military exercises in the region.

With troops, citizens and resources spread across its Pacific territories, France wants to protect its interests and project its power alongside like-minded democracies worried about China’s growing assertiveness.

The exercise, called "Talisman Sabre 2023," kicked off on Saturday and is hosted by the US and Australia with navy elements from France, the UK, Germany, Canada, Japan and several Pacific islands taking part. 

A missile is launched from a United States military HIMARS system during joint military drills at a firing range in northern Australia as part of Exercise Talisman Sabre, the largest combined training activity between the Australian Defence Force and the United States military, in Shoalwater Bay on July 22, 2023. France also takes part in the war games. AFP - ANDREW LEESON

The exercise also shows a complete restauration of relations between France and the Aukus (Australia-UK-US) alliance after a diplomatic rift after Canberra cancelled a €58 billion submarine deal with France in favor of the US.

• Sinking of submarine deal leaves Franco-US friendship in tatters

The most strategically important stop is Papua New Guinea, which has seen growing Chinese influence and signed a new security cooperation pact with the US in May. The most populous Pacific Island nation is also negotiating a security treaty with Australia.

According to USNI-News, a news outlet of the US Navy Institute, the exercises are currently closely monitored by a Chinese war ship. 

No 'anti-China policy'

Macron’s office insists the trip is not aimed at pressing an "anti-China policy", but at encouraging regional powers to diversify their partnerships beyond Beijing and Washington.

He felt the trip was needed because of "new, more intense threats’" to security, institutions and the environment in the region, according to an official in Macron's office who spoke on condition of anonymity.

His chief diplomatic adviser, Emmanuel Bonne, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum last week, said "China is a global challenge. It is a challenge for the US as well as for the EU," adding that "there is kind of a strategic awakening in Europe today" of the need for tougher policy toward China.

But he insisted that Europe shouldn't "delegate" its global security needs to the US and should craft its own strategic policies.

"If we want to remain relevant in today’s world and to tomorrow’s world as France, as Europeans, we need to be much more robust," he said.

• Why are talks between Paris and New Caledonia’s rival groups deadlocked?

Macron’s office says he plans to visit a French patrol ship in the area, and offer infrastructure projects and a partnership to save forests and mangroves while ensuring jobs in Papua New Guinea, where France’s TotalEnergies is leading a liquefied natural gas project.

The French tour is coinciding with trips by some top US officials to the region, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Tonga, New Zealand and Australia this week after a visit to Papua New Guinea in May.

Rebuild trust

Macron began his visit on Monday in the French archipelago of New Caledonia, trying to rebuild trust after voters rejected a string of independence referendums that exposed entrenched frustrations of native Kanaks and inequalities with the mainland, and divisions over management of the region’s rich nickel reserves.

Negotiations are underway for a new status for the territory and its institutions.

"I am at our compatriots’ side to define the basis of this new path," Macron said in a televised interview after arriving.

Coastal erosion and other impacts of climate change top the agenda at each stop on Macron’s trip, in a region replete with islands that see periodic tsunamis and risk disappearing to rising seas, according to his advisers.

France has been an uninterrupted presence in the region since the 19th century, thanks to its colonial history and continued control over territories that are home to 1.5 million citizens and some 7,000 troops across the Indo-Pacific.

(With news agencies)