With a wide range of activities and capabilities, France is making contributions to maritime security throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
Paris, Apr.3.– In July, France will take over the chairmanship of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium for 2020-22. The first summit meeting, to be held in La Réunion, was postponed from late June to November. France’s chairmanship is an important symbol of the growing regional integration of French territories in the Indian and Pacific oceans, encouraged by Paris, and of the growing importance of maritime security issues in French strategy in the Indo-Pacific. The main reasons of the latter are threefold.
First, with nearly 2 million nationals living in the region and an EEZ of 9 million square kilometers, the protection of national maritime spaces and their resources constitutes a fundamental mission of the 7,000 French soldiers deployed permanently on five bases (La Réunion, Djibouti, Abu Dhabi, Nouméa, Papeete), notwithstanding naval forces sent on a regular base from metropolitan France.
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