France’s latest strategic updates make one thing clear: Paris has turned a page on AUKUS and moved on. In July, it released new versions of its national security strategy (NSR) and Indo-Pacific Strategy, the latter published seven years after being launched in a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron in Sydney. The overarching signal is unmistakable. Australia remains a valuable partner in France’s Indo-Pacific vision, particularly in the Blue Pacific, where Paris now prioritises joint action on climate change and countering revisionist powers. While an Australian connection is strongly held in the Indo-Pacific Strategy, repeated across security, energy, transport, research and environmental cooperation, Canberra is absent from the NSR. But this absence should not be interpreted as a cooling of strategic ties, after all Japan and other regional partners are mentioned, but only once.
France updates strategic documents, and its relationship with Australia | The Strategist
