France's Indo-Pacific Strategy And Its EU Presidency To Benefit ASEAN

By Rosmalis Anuar KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 1 (Bernama) -- France's Indo-Pacific Strategy is all encompassing and Paris views the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as one of the three solid pillars of the strategy, along with Japan and India. Hence, it's not surprising that ASEAN will be a priority for Paris when it takes over the presidency of the European Union (EU) next year, said the Director for Asia and Oceania of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, M. Bertrand Lortholary. Lortholary noted that France's Indo-Pacific Strategy is multi-faceted, from security and defence issues, to economic and connectivity topics, to people-to-people exchanges, academic exchanges, climate change and health issues, and also biodiversity, that will also greatly benefit ASEAN. “So this is a wide strategy. Now, the process is that we want concrete actions based on the partnerships between France and the EU on one side, and the Indo-Pacific region on the other side,” he said in an interview during his recent visit to the Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama). Accompanied by the French Ambassador to Malaysia Roland Galharague, Lortholary also met with Bernama Chairman Senator Ras Adiba Radzi during the visit. The seasoned diplomat was on a working tour to this region, which also covered Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei, following French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s two-day visit to Indonesia on Nov 23-24. On the security and defence front, Lortholary said France and the EU share similar views with ASEAN on how the challenges in the region should be tackled in line with the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). He noted that France is very much present in the Indo-Pacific region, with territories and around 2 million citizens in this area of the world as well as over 7,000 military staff permanently stationed throughout the region. “We also have the second-largest maritime zone in the world after the United States (US), with about 90 per cent of it located in the Pacific Ocean. “The very fact that we have a large Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of above 11 million square kilometres gives us probably somewhat a special and additional role in the region,” he said. Lortholary said EU also has concrete initiatives with regards to the security of the region and one of them is the EU Critical Maritime Routes in the Indian Ocean (CRIMARIO) that is dedicated to safety and security of maritime activities in the Indian Ocean through information sharing and training. He said the newly announced French-Indonesian strategic partnership, known as the two-plus-two dialogue between the foreign affairs and defence ministers of both countries was a significant decision to strengthen its presence in the region. He also touched on the trilateral security pact between Australia, the US and the United Kingdom, known through its acronym AUKUS, saying that France’s position on the pact was not certainly based on its immediate consequence from the loss of French submarine contract with Australia. In 2016, Australia had signed a contract to buy 12 Attack-class submarines from the French shipbuilder Naval Group worth nearly US$90 billion. “We believed that we had a solid partnership with Australia based on trust but overnight we realised we were stabbed in the back, that Australia had negotiated behind our back. That's not our concept of a partnership at all. So that's one issue and there is much more at stake for a number of reasons,” he said. He expressed France’s concern about the way AUKUS was conceived, as its exclusively military, contrary to France and EU’s strategies in Indo-Pacific that were multi-faceted without overlooking the security challenges in the region. “We are present, we are already doing a significant number of activities here. So we are not minimising at all what is at stake, but what we're saying is that the right answer to the challenges, is much wider than just military, provocation and confrontational,” he explained. Lortholary said France is also concerned over the way Australia acquired nuclear-powered submarines under the AUKUS deal even it was done legally without breaching the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). “It is the first time ever that a non-nuclear country will be provided with military nuclear material coming from one of the five nuclear countries in the world and there is a concern because if it is Australia today, then who's next tomorrow? So that's a question in itself,” he said. On France-US relations, the diplomat said both countries have been working hard to repair “what had been damaged,” adding that the US explicitly acknowledged the significance of French commitment in the Indo-Pacific and is willing to elevate cooperation in this region. -- BERNAMA