Guess who turned up in Bangkok this week at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting? The forum, which includes the US, China, Australia, Japan, Russia, but not France, was visited by none other than President Macron. ‘You must be asking yourself what a French president is doing here’, he charmed in English. Macron claimed to be the first European leader to be invited to the forum. He insisted he was there because France is ‘a country of the region’. According to the Elysée this invitation ‘validates the Indo-Pacific strategy launched in 2018’. It does indeed, but with far more subtle ramifications.
What has always been a logical, albeit humiliating, step is for France join the pact
It was to be expected that President Macron would eventually seek some kind of association with the Australian, US, UK politico-military agreement known as Aukus. Australia’s decision in September 2021 to terminate France’s ‘contract of the century’ for the construction of 12 diesel powered submarines and then sign another with Washington and London for nuclear versions was seen in France and abroad as a serious humiliation for the French president.
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