A Senate report underlines the growing inadequacy between the ambitions displayed and the military means in the face of the revival of tensions in the region.
by Elise Vincent
While the Head of State must present a new roadmap for overseas as part of the future military programming law, a report by the Senate, approved on Wednesday January 25, that MO12345lemonde was able to consult, performs a critical overview of French Indo-Pacific policy. In a context of growing tensions in the region, in particular China pressures on many exclusive economic zones (ZEE), the French strategy lacks “readability”, workers Cédric Perrin (Les Républicains) and Rachid Temal ( Socialist party), which led their work during 2022.
According to the French definition, Indo-Pacific goes from French Polynesia to Reunion, from New Caledonia to the coast of East Africa. France lists 1.6 million citizens there, spread over seven regions, departments and communities. To these territories, we must add 11 million square kilometers of Zee, the second maritime area of this type in the world after that of the United States. However, if the global military presence in this space reaches some 8,000 men, these troops are very fragmented, and piloted by five different zones of command, detail the senators.
In addition, these workforce includes 1,500 soldiers based in Djibouti, 650 in the United Arab Emirates (water), and punctually 700 sailors on a mission. Only the rest of the workforce is therefore formally located between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific: 2,000 between Reunion and Mayotte, 1,600 in New Caledonia and 1,200 in French Polynesia. This scattering should be rediscovered to better target the efforts, believe the senators, who formulate a certain number of proposals, including a new zoning allowing “to better integrate the South Pacific, Taiwan and Latin America”.
Limited transport and surveillance capacities
Apart from Djibouti and the water, which have home hunting planes and serve as a regular stopover for the navy, the other French settlements in Indo-Pacific only have three to five surface buildings each, two to Five surveillance planes, and two to four helicopters. Most of these means are aging and limited to such distances. “It happens that the forces cannot be present when great powers of the Indo-Pacific inform them of the passage of ships in the French ZEE, or that they are not able to respond to several concomitant emergencies”, illustrate the senators.
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