[ROLES Commentary No. 23] [日本語訳 Japanese Translation]

Unrest in New Caledonia shows France needs AUKUS partners and Japan

Guibourg Delamotte
Professor, Japanese politics and International relations,
National Institute of Oriental Studies, Paris,
Visiting Senior Research Fellow, RCAST, the University of Tokyo


France has made no mention of joining AUKUS, nor has it been invited to. Yet, the events in New Caledonia show it needs to boost ties with Australia, the UK, the US, and Japan. France can no longer rely on strategic balancing. President Macron’s diplomacy is misunderstood by its allies: it is time to alter it.

 

A French territory in the South Pacific, New Caledonia has seen riots against a government plan to alter the legal anomaly, which since 1988 has excluded some citizens, those who arrived on the island more recently, from the right to vote in some of the island’s elections. This was intended to prevent recent arrivals to alter the demographic balance in favour of a white population. Independence was rejected by referendum in 2021 following a process started in 1988, and the government reckons the legal exception to universal suffrage must end. The independence movement boycotted the 2021 referendum and deems the government plan illegitimate. Local politics in New Caledonia have taken on an international dimension, with suspicions that Azerbaijan was encouraging the independence movement, in league it would seem with Russia or China. The influence of the latter has been identified too
[1]. New Caledonia is the world’s third largest nickel producer and is the keystone of France’s presence in the South Pacific. In addition, those events could have a spill-over effect in French Guyana or Martinique.

 

 

‘By 2030, I want France to have consolidated its role as a balancing, united, globally influential power, a driving force for European autonomy, and a power that assumes its responsibilities by contributing, as a reliable and supportive partner, to the preservation of multilateral mechanisms based on international law.’, said President Macron in the opening page of the National Strategic Review in 2022. 

 

This has induced two trends which, to France’s allies, appear contradictory.

 

France, seeing itself as a balancing power, is attempting, in neo-Gaullist-style, to act as go-between, as an additional option for ‘Global South’-assimilated countries, offering an alternative to a China-United States Cold War. It hoped to stop the war in its early stages. With China too, Macron wants to appear benevolent and reap commercial benefits. France is not as dependent on Chinese trade and investment as the EU overall. French trade is primarily reliant on its EU neighbours in contrast to the EU and Germany in 2023, but China is an important market. 

 

Xi Jinping was recently in Paris. Some passages of one of the declarations reads as wishful thinking, hopeful and naïve: France ‘welcomes commitments made by the Chinese authorities to refrain from selling any weapons or aid to Moscow and to strictly control the export of dual-use goods’ a year ago, reiterated on May 6. France encourages ‘joint investments in high technologies’ including ‘batteries, electric vehicles, technological solutions and innovation platforms’. ‘France and China agree on the need to contribute to strengthening the cyber capabilities of States, particularly developing countries, to deal with all types of cyber threats, including those linked to the development of artificial intelligence’. 

 

But France has also been deploying its armed forces and navy to the Indo-Pacific so as to help deter China. Japan and France share a concern for freedom of navigation in international waters, and maintaining international law in the Indo-Pacific. Like the Japanese, the French takes part in PITCH BLACK, organised by the Royal Australian Air Force, KAKADU for navies, and TALISMAN SABRE. It is also in RIMPAC organised by the Americans. Japan takes part in those exercises too. Each year France’s mission JEANNE D’ARC takes its navy around the world for months. In 2024, it won’t be deployed to the Indian Ocean or in Japan. But the aircraft carrier group Charles-de-Gaulle will be deployed there in 2024 including for joint exercises with the Japanese MSDF. In the South China Sea, three to five French ships per year, carry out operational missions (as opposed to exercises or a passage). This year the French take part in BALIKATAN in April-May 2024 with the US and the Philippines.  A Frigate will again be deployed to the area in June. 

 

France with its five military bases and commands and 1.6 million nationals in the Indo-Pacific has strong interests there. France is a member of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). France is a dialogue partner in the post-forum dialogue of the Pacific Islands Forum (as are the USA, the UK, Japan…). New Caledonia is a member (as are Australia and New-Zealand) of PIF; Wallis and Futuna have observer status. French Polynesia and New-Caledonia are members of PALM, the Pacific Leaders Meeting created by Japan. France hosted the South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting (SPDMM, created by Australia in 2013) for the first time, in New-Caledonia in 2023. France is a development partner of ASEAN and takes part in the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting+ working groups on maritime safety and peacekeeping. France along with Australia, the US, New Zealand is part of the Pacific Quad patrol, which for 170 days each year, patrols Pacific island states’ EEZ with their officials on board for them to police illegal activities themselves.

 

Therefore, to Paris, there is no contradiction in its course of action: France’s commitment is undoubtable. France seeks a form of dialogue with China which seems diplomatic equidistance, and military messaging to China. Macron aims to avoid a division of the world in two antagonistic blocks. French diplomacy seeks ‘sovereignty partnerships’ in Asia.

 

But to allies such as Japan, there is. Japan has been making extensive efforts to develop partnerships with like-minded countries. It has been keen to develop a multi-layered deterrence whereby partnership with AUKUS countries, possibly AUKUS itself, as well as efforts to boost its defence capabilities and hard deterrence. On a softer level, the Quad and cooperation with India and maritime southeast Asian countries serves to help those countries militarily and create a sense of unease in China. Vis-à-vis the Global South, Japan shows concern for issues such as food security and climate change. Japan’s official development assistance anchored by the Free-and-open Indo-Pacific strategy, aims at proving developing countries with ‘connectivity’ and ‘quality infrastructures’. 

 

France disturbs this global, coherent scheme. It makes sense for Japan to cooperate with France which appears to care about climate change, with which a dialogue on cybersecurity and nuclear energy has been going on for years. But France will not side entirely with Japan and its allies, and appears less reliable a partner than the UK. Why does France agree for NATO to open a Strategic direction South hub and object to a low-key, largely useless but symbolic, NATO liaison office in Tokyo?

 

 

Japan is an important partner for France and the degree to which they converge is hard to understate. When Kishida visited Paris early May, shortly before Xi did, new announcements were made - the beginning of negotiations for a Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA – which in practice has been talked about for some time). Japan is VivaTech’s ‘guest of honour’ this year. This is a yearly gathering for tech companies and start-ups.  In 2025, France will be hosting the AI summit launched by Japan in 2023. The French evacuated Japanese nationals from Sudan and Niger (2023) and Haiti in March 2024.

 

In December 2023, the two states signed a new Roadmap for cooperation (2023-2027). This new document is more substantial (21 pages) than the previous one (2019-2023, 8 pages). The two countries stress their insistence on peace and stability in the Taiwan strait. Both support Taiwan’s participation in international organisations whether as member or as observer. More broadly, they reject any change to the status quo that would be unilateral or by force or coercion. Practical propositions for cooperation are outlined. Japan could join KIWA, a climate resilience initiative conducted by France, the EU, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. They will seek to collaborate on climate change or maritime security. 

 

Japan ranks among the partners listed in the French 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy along with Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Singapore, India and the United States. With the latter ‘an ally and major player in the Indo-Pacific’, states the strategy, ‘France wishes to maintain a close relationship and strengthen coordination, including on issues raised by the recent announcement of the AUKUS agreement’. 

 

For France to approach AUKUS partners would make sense. Relations with Australia improved after the change of administrations in Australia and the signature of a Roadmap for cooperation

[2]. The UK receives no mention in the French Indo-Pacific strategy and a small mention in the 2022 

National Strategic Review: ‘France next supports the renewal of the European partnership policy that was initiated with the adoption of the Strategic Compass. It goes hand-in-hand with strengthening the EU's defence relationships with countries in Africa and the Indo-Pacific and, in the case of the United States and the United Kingdom, with the implementation of balanced relations supported by regular and intensive defence and security dialogues.’ What this document makes clear is France’s unwillingness to align with the US, which is why it aims for a stronger European defence, alongside NATO: ‘The EU and NATO should seek a more complementary relationship, sustainable over the long term’. In a European context, the best partner for France is the UK. The UK’s House of Commons calls for increased defence cooperation with France considered a ‘like-minded partner’

[3]. The 

Integrated Review Refresh 2023 calls on establishing with France a permanent European maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific and mentions the Lancaster House treaties (2010)

[4]. President Macron seems convinced his diplomatic line is the right one and has faith that he can sustain a balanced relationship with China. He fails to see its lack of results, and the unease it creates in partners. The unrest in New Caledonia brought to light the growing influence of foreign powers on the pro-independence movement. France is on one side, no matter what it thinks, and needs to pull its act together so partners understand where it stand

[1] Clara Hidalgo, ‘‘Ambitions géostratégiques’, ‘ressources enviables’’... pourquoi la Chine étend son influence en Nouvelle-Calédonie ? », Le Figaro, 25 July 2023.
[2] Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia-France Roadmap – A New Agenda for Bilateral Cooperation, December 2023: https://www.dfat.gov.au/countries/france/australia-france-roadmap-new-agenda-bilateral-cooperation
[3] House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee, ‘Tilting horizons: the Integrated Review and the Indo-Pacific’, HC 172 incorporating Session 2021–22 HC 684, 30 August 2023, pp. 56, 74: https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/41144/documents/204045/default/
[4] France No. 1 (2010) Cm 7976, Treaty between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the French Republic for Defence and Security Co-operation (2011): https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a75c663ed915d6faf2b594e/8174.pdf