French ships visit Hobart amid regional tensions
When France announced it would increase its nuclear arsenal in a major development in its defense policy, its navy docked in Australia, sending a clear message about freedom of navigation.
Announcing the massive support on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron said “to be free, we need to be afraid.”
The move comes as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its fifth year and the Middle East grapples with a widening conflict following US-led attacks on Iran.
The French icebreaker L’Astrolabe docked in Hobart earlier this week after completing its final Antarctic rotation of the season.
The patrol ship Benebig also joined the ship to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the French navy in 1626.
Speaking in Canberra before the anniversary, French Ambassador to Australia Pierre-Andre Imbert drew attention to his country’s millions of citizens in the Indo-Pacific.
“The main mission of our Navy is to protect French interests and the rights and sovereignty of all our partners,” he told AAP.
Central to this is protecting freedom of maritime navigation amid rising regional tensions over Beijing’s growing influence.
China launched an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Pacific in September 2024; this missile traveled approximately 12,000 km and landed approximately 700 km from the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia.
The testing raised concerns about increasing militarization in the region.
Mr Imbert said the French navy was helping combat illegal fishing activities in the Pacific, which pose a major threat to the region’s economies.
France is also working with partner countries, including Australia, to crack down on drug trafficking.
The top diplomat said that thanks to cooperation between the countries, operations to combat transnational crime have achieved “tremendous success”.
But the presence of French ships in the Indo-Pacific went beyond deterrence, with events held to celebrate scientific discoveries.
Mr Imbert said the archives documenting the d’Entrecasteaux expedition, which explored Tasmania and other Pacific Island nations in the 1790s, were “exceptional” in collecting testimonies of First Nations people and capturing cultural exchange.
Thanks to collaboration between Australia and France, these archives have been digitized and handed over to the Australian National Archives for translation into English.
