« La France est une puissance dans le Pacifique, une puissance en Europe et une puissance multilatérale, et il s’agit d’un partenariat très important pour l’Australie », a déclaré la ministre australienne des Affaires étrangères, Penny Wong.
France’s foreign minister came to Canberra to put a new stamp on her country’s relationship with Australia, with the two Pacific powers announcing a France-Australia Bilateral Roadmap that includes more military exercises, more defense cooperation and increased intelligence sharing.
“We are deepening military interoperability through more complex joint activities. We are increasing dialogues, strategic exchanges, and intelligence sharing to strengthen our mutual understanding and enhance cooperation in response to our shared strategic challenges,” declares the roadmap, signed Monday.
Also, both countries will get improved access to each other’s defense facilities. “Enhanced French access to Australian defence facilities will elevate cooperation to a higher level. Enhanced Australian access to French defence facilities in the Pacific and Indian Oceans will facilitate a more sustained Australian presence in priority areas of operation,” the roadmap says.
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Paris and Canberra aim to increase “mutually beneficial” defense industry cooperation as well, “through a program of dialogues, exchanges, and joint initiatives to foster increased collaboration between our respective defence industries. This includes activities under the Declaration of Intent to cooperate in the military space domain and the joint delivery of 155mm ammunition to Ukraine.”
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, in her first visit to the Lucky Country, said both countries wanted to “move on” from the AUKUS controversy, when in a surprise move Australia canceled a $90 billion AUD ($59 billion) deal to buy a conventionally-powered French attack submarine and decided to build its own SSN AUKUS nuclear-powered boats with the help of the UK and the US. When the previous government of Scott Morrison announced the AUKUS deal, France recalled its ambassador and kicked Australia out of a strategic partnership.
“Our task was to rebuild, reset, use whatever word is appropriate. I don’t know which one you prefer,” Colonna said during the visit.
The new reset of relations was really the culmination of a process that began in July last year when the new Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese went to Paris and declared: “Australia’s relationship with France matters. Trust, respect and honesty matters. That is how I will approach our relations.”
He was rewarded when the two countries issued a joint statement saying French President Emmanuel Macron and Albanese were committed to “building a closer and stronger relationship.” Macron had earlier accused Morrison of lying over the cancellation of the French attack submarine contract.
Colonna told reporters Monday that the “Indo Pacific is a top priority for France. We are a nation of the Pacific.
“We are determined to step up, beef up our cooperation with partners in the region, including, of course, with the number one partner for us in the region, i.e. Australia. And we need to do so in order to cope with global challenges, and also to preserve the rules-based order that we cherish and can see sometimes shaken,” she said.
She took a moment to wish “a prompt recovery to the Australian Navy officer that was injured in [a] recent incident, an incident that should not have happened.”
“France is a power in the Pacific, it’s a power in Europe and it’s a multilateral power, and this is a very important partnership to Australia,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said.
In fact, France has about 3,000 personnel stationed in the Pacific, chiefly on Noumea and New Caledonia. And France’s commitment to the region is growing, with Macron committing to to deploy another 200 soldiers to Noumea and invest €150 million ($162 million) there, along with creating a Pacific academy to help train regional militaries.
The new roadmap also calls for beefed up Antarctic cooperation with Australia, as well as work on critical minerals, an industry in which Australia is a global leader.