Balancing on fumes: What drives France in the Indo-Pacific

10 October 2023

France under Emmanuel Macron has given the Indo-Pacific region a level of attention unseen since at least the withdrawal from Indochina in 1954. The Macron government never misses an occasion to reaffirm France’s status as an Indo-Pacific power. It produced in 2018 its first-ever Indo‑Pacific strategy document alongside conducting high-profile naval deployments. France justifies its new strategy through a commitment to stability, multilateralism, and a refusal of military blocs. However, contrary to what Paris may say, this newfound interest is motivated by self-interest and does not transcend great power politics. France’s Indo-Pacific strategy is profoundly concerned with containing Chinese power and aligned with the United States.

France’s Indo-Pacific headache

First, it must be clear that the Indo-Pacific is not French foreign policy’s primary concern. Although France possesses four territories in the Pacific Ocean — Clipperton Island, New Caledonia, Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna Islands — it remains primarily focused on Europe for obvious geographic and security reasons. However, the Indo-Pacific has quickly risen in priority through the presidencies of François Hollande and Macron to the point of eclipsing Africa, Paris’ traditional number two area of action.

France’s Indo-Pacific strategy mainly arises from the fear of China. Despite French official discourse, it is clearly on the American side of the containment fence and will remain there for the foreseeable future.

French officials tend to emphasise that they do not aim to contain China and want to propose a third way to escape power competition. They also try to distance themselves, at least rhetorically, from what they describe as the United States’ overly military-centric approach. Macron went as far as criticising US risk-taking over the Taiwan issue. Yet, actions and sometimes even declarations contradict this pretence of a third way. Indeed, the French Indo-Pacific strategy is primarily driven by the fear of a Chinese hegemony over the region.

China achieving regional hegemony would have manifold unpleasant consequences for Paris. First, France would not have credible means to defend its numerous island territories in the Pacific Ocean. It would be reduced to relying on continued Chinese benevolence. Second, Beijing would have enough leverage to close the region to French military and economic interests, like how Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe during the Cold War precluded exchanges with the West. Third, with China hegemonic in the Indo-Pacific, Beijing would be able to project significant power outward and eventually gain formidable clout in Europe, too.

China’s rise and its dangers appear prominently in the French Indo-Pacific strategy, in which Paris wishes for “the maintenance of strategic stability and military balances of power”. For former Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, France needs to “assume plainly competition with China, of which we constrain its military rise, its hegemonic goals and growing aggressivity”. In a surprisingly frank manner, Macron himself expressed his fears of Chinese hegemony, which would threaten French interests and access to the region. The defence of French Pacific territories and Chinese potential ambitions over them is undoubtedly on officials’ minds. China’s relations with New Caledonian independentist movements have not gone unnoticed. French researchers worry that Beijing could see an independent New Caledonia as a potential base and a valuable source of nickel.

France has limited resources, and its military is already overstretched. The Indo-Pacific strategy must be economically profitable if Paris is to sustain it in the long run. Indeed, Economic benefits feature prominently in the Indo‑Pacific strategy document, listed as its second pillar, just behind security as the first pillar. Paris stresses its willingness to use its diplomatic influence to promote French companies in the region. According to a parliamentary report, “arms exports are the backbone of France’s Indo-Pacific strategy”. Arms exports are not only an economic bonanza but also a means to build lasting dependencies with local states. The Ministry of the Armed Forces described a deal to provide Indonesia with 42 Rafale fighter jets as “a sale that clearly gives credibility […] to France’s Indo-Pacific strategy”.

Ambitions and reality

France does not qualify as a great power despite its nuclear deterrent and niche conventional capabilities. It cannot challenge China on its own, its principal source of concern. The sheer geographic distance between the French mainland and the Indo-Pacific theatre compounds its weakness. France can count on less than 7,000 troops in the region, and only a handful of small ships are available. Paris has little firepower to bring in any major Indo-Pacific contingency and cannot weigh on regional great power politics alone.

Instead, France’s strength lies in its less ideologically loaded foreign policy than that of the United States. The Biden Administration’s framing of world politics as a contest of democracy versus autocracy can ward off many in South and Southeast Asia. Unlike the US, Paris is less focused on promoting liberal values abroad, and its limited presence in the region since 1954 makes it a more palatable partner for those with anti-imperialist or neutralist inclinations.

Paris succeeded during the mid-2010s in selling fighter jets to New Delhi in a market historically dominated by Russia. It recently repeated the same feat with Indonesia, whose relations with the United States have long been fraught. Unlike Washington, it maintains good working relations with its former colony of Cambodia. In that sense, France’s relative weakness can facilitate its regional endeavours because it cannot become a domineering partner in the way the United States could be.

Nevertheless, sympathy toward France does not replace hard power. The collapse in September 2021 of the landmark contract to sell attack-class submarines to Australia provided a reality check on France’s large ambitions. The AUKUS debacle exemplified France’s limits and was a severe blow to France’s arms export-centric foreign policy. It also established that France lacked the muscle to maintain a significant influence independently of the United States.

Alone, France matters little for the military balance and can bring little firepower to deter or fight Chinese aggression. As the French Navy’s Chief of Staff warned, “Against the Chinese navy, we will win if we fight together, as a coalition”. Yet, the low number and small size of French ships deployed in the Indo-Pacific would make France a minor coalition partner. Even if it had time to assemble its fleet and air force in the region, it would still not change the balance much.

French planners understand that a Chinese attempt to seize New Caledonia, Wallis, or Polynesia through force would likely succeed without direct allied intervention. In any general war, its primary role would probably be limited to help secure the United States and its East Asian allies’ rear from New Caledonia and Polynesia.

An undeclared alignment?

France’s Indo-Pacific strategy remains focused on China and America-aligned. Its official rhetoric of transcending great power competition and refusing containment aims at avoiding economic reprisals and winning Chinese sympathy over international issues like Ukraine. However, this appearance of non-alignment has fallen flat in Beijing. The Chinese are lucid about French intentions and see Paris as an American wingman. France’s high-profile freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait have done nothing to convince the Chinese of its neutrality.

France’s efforts to grow its clout in the Indo-Pacific contrasts with its slow-burning withdrawal from Africa, Paris’ traditional preserve. Contrary to the post-colonial Françafrique generation, the young blood now making French foreign policy has little interest in Africa. It favours refocusing France’s finite resources to where its core security and economic interests lie: Europe first and the Indo-Pacific second. Hence, there is always a risk that the Indo-Pacific strategy may become unsustainable if European stability markedly declines — for instance, if Russia makes inroads into Central Europe.

France’s Indo-Pacific strategy mainly arises from the fear of China. Despite French official discourse, it is clearly on the American side of the containment fence and will remain there for the foreseeable future. Paris’ autonomous ability to influence events in the region is minimal, and its ambitions likely exceed its resources. To defend its interests, it needs to make clever use of its niches of excellence and abandon its delusions of transcending great power politics.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Dylan Motin is a doctoral candidate majoring in political science at Kangwon National University. He was previously a Marcellus Policy Fellow at the John Quincy Adams Society and a visiting research fellow at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies. Dylan was named one of the Next Generation Korea Peninsula Specialists at the National Committee on American Foreign Policy and a Young Leader of the Pacific Forum. His research expertise revolves around international relations theory, and his main interests are balance-of-power theory, great power competition, and Korean affairs. Image credit: Flickr/ US Indo-Pacific Command.