New Caledonia key to France's diplomatic and military strategy

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00:00 And for more, let's turn to France 24's Tom Kennedy.

00:03 Tom, Macron's visit's a reminder that France is a major player in the South Pacific.

00:09 That's right.

00:10 So, in the dark blue area of this map here, you can see France's military presence in

00:16 this region.

00:17 There's 1,650 troops in this dark blue region and over there in the orange, there's 1,200.

00:25 France also has a number of military attaches stationed across the South Pacific, permanent

00:31 ones in Australia and Samoa.

00:34 And where you can see these symbols of ships and jets, that's symbolic of French naval

00:39 and air deployments last year.

00:43 Major ones include the Mission Jeanne d'Arc, which is this annual deployment of the French

00:47 Navy and Pegasus, which was France's largest air force deployment in the Indo-Pacific.

00:55 France has also participated in a number of military exercises in the region in Australia,

01:00 New Caledonia and French Polynesia with its allies.

01:04 Those include the Equator Drills organised by France and the Talisman Sabre Drills organised

01:10 by Australia and the US.

01:12 And France, of course, as you were mentioning there with the name dropping Australia, the

01:16 US, it's not the only player in the region.

01:18 That's right.

01:19 So, these areas in white mark where France does retain territorial possessions, but as

01:24 you rightly pointed out, despite Macron's ambitions for greater French influence in

01:29 the region, this region, the Asia-Pacific, has become this battleground for competition

01:35 between on one hand China and on the other, the US.

01:38 So the importance of this competition was really brought to light in 2021 when Australia

01:44 sort of went behind the back of France and signed this military deal with the US and

01:48 the UK AUKUS.

01:50 But if we look again at the map, you can see these navy blue regions are regions and territories

01:57 collectively linked to the US, while the red ones are linked to mainland China and the

02:02 yellow to Taiwan.

02:04 So while analysts say that China is not responsible for this current violence in New Caledonia,

02:13 China does have close ties with the Kanak people, the indigenous people of New Caledonia.

02:17 So if independence was to eventuate, it's likely that China would have their eye on

02:22 New Caledonia with the ambition of adding to its territories of influence in the South

02:28 Pacific.

02:29 Many thanks, Tom Kennedy.

02:30 We might borrow that map.

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