The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced in a joint press release the opening of an embassy in Samoa, a state in Polynesia located west of New Caledonia.
“Fifty years after the establishment of their diplomatic relations”, the two countries announced that they wanted to strengthen “the ties of friendship and cooperation existing between the two countries, in particular in favor of peace, security, the fight against climate change and the preservation of biodiversity in the Pacific and around the world”.
This announcement comes in parallel with the trip of Emmanuel Macron to the French territories of the Pacific Ocean. After a visit to New Caledonia, the President of the Republic went to Vanuatu where he detailed during a speech France’s “Indo-Pacific strategy” around defense and the fight against global warming, and “a compass: the sovereignty of peoples and the independence of States”. France has six overseas departments and communities in the Indo-Pacific basin and more than 90% of its exclusive economic zone.
Above all, the president denounced the “new imperialisms” in Oceania, implicitly targeting Chinese influence without ever mentioning the country by name. “Proud that our diplomacy is opening its first embassy in Polynesia and deploying our Indo-Pacific strategy, in this region where so much is at stake,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna commented on Twitter.
Based in the capital of Samoa Apia, the embassy “will contribute in particular to strengthening the links between Samoa and the French territories of French Polynesia, New Caledonia and Wallis and Futuna”, also specifies the press release.
France can therefore boast of having now 6 embassies in Oceania, and a total of 37 in the Indo-Pacific, which makes it one of the main diplomatic powers in the area behind China (44 embassies), Japan (42) , the United Kingdom (40) and the United States (40) which announced in the spring that they were planning to open an embassy in Vanuatu.
The United States reopened its embassy in the Solomon Islands in February, 30 years after it was closed. US Vice President Kamala Harris also announced at a summit last year that Washington would open new embassies in Kiribati and Tonga. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was visiting the Tonga Islands on Wednesday to inaugurate this new embassy. Unlike the French president, he warned the archipelago against a “predatory” investment from China, which strengthens its influence in the Pacific.
