France
Macron and Biden: “Friends, allied, but not aligned”
On 24 January, four days after his investiture, US President Joe Biden had his first official phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron. Commentators were quick to mention…
Artefacts paving France’s return to Africa
In November, the French Senate unanimously voted to return a small selection of pre-colonial African artefacts to Benin and Senegal that were looted by colonial forces. Benin will…
Jihadist attacks in Nice: The Tunisian connection
In the last five years, the French city of Nice has been targeted twice by jihadist terrorism. Both times the perpetrators were young men from Tunisia, the smallest country in…
New Caledonia: A vote lost, yet independence advocates claim a win
On Sunday, nearly 181,000 voters from New Caledonia, a French archipelago colonised in 1853 and just 1,500 kilometres off the cost of Australia, were called to the polls to answer…
Tackling environmental security threats in the Indian Ocean
The explosion and fire on board a supertanker off Sri Lanka this month, following closely on last month’s disastrous oil spill in Mauritius, serve as a reminder that environmental…
Another independence referendum looms in New Caledonia
New Caledonia will vote again on whether to remain within the French republic on 4 October 2020. At the last such referendum, in November 2018, the result was 56.67% against…
A French perspective on Australia’s role in the Indian Ocean
Every government is struggling with the Covid-19 crisis, with one eye to the post-coronavirus world. In this context, it may be worth looking at the French perception of Australia…
New Caledonia decides the timing of its second independence referendum
Preparations are proceeding in a businesslike way for the second of three possible independence referendums in New Caledonia, in 2020. Loyalists and independence groups are…
Jacques Chirac and the Pacific
Former President Jacques Chirac, a giant of French politics and the man who said “non” to George W Bush and the war in Iraq in 2003, died yesterday at age 86.
The news brought a…
Macron’s risky quest for equilibrium via rapprochement
Every year, the “Conference of the Ambassadors” is a central moment in France’s foreign policy, as the French president reflects on the country’s achievements and outlines its…