Speaking at the 8th anniversary of the South China Sea Arbitral Award, French Ambassador to the Philippines, Marie Fontanel reiterated France full commitment to support Philippines in its quest to uphold freedom of navigation and overflight consistent with international law, particularly the UNCLOS together with other like-minded partners.
In her speech, Ambassador Fontanel highlighted that as Ambassador of the French Republic and also as Member State of the European Union, like other partners of Philippines she calls the upholding a rule-based order in South China Sea. She also noted that the increasing tensions that China perpetuates and uses as a tactic becomes the new normal, and the risk of uncontrolled escalation with regional or even global repercussions cannot be underestimated.
She also reiterated France’ shared interests in the Indo-Pacific.
While China continues to provoke the Philippines and wantonly violates the international rules when the landmark decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in favor of the Philippines in 2016. For 8 years, China continues not to honor the rule of law and for the past 8 years, the Philippines remains a victim of its aggression.
When it comes to these issues, France shares with the Philippines a non-confrontational approach firmly anchored in the respect of international law and multilateralism. In that regard, the 2016 Arbitral Award sent to the world a powerful message, for which we must thank the Philippines. It became a building block of a reaffirmed rule-based international order that we all benefit from. Unfortunately, as the news regularly shows, we cannot take the prevalence of the rule of law for granted. It is being challenged in many ways, and it undermines our long-term, collective peace and prosperity.
As a maritime nation, a “blue nation”, of the Indo-Pacific, with 2 million French people living in its overseas territories and the second Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) worldwide, France shares similar concerns with the Philippines when it comes to upholding its sovereign rights, for example in the area of illegal fishing. This is why our commitment in the region is hardwired into our shared interests, as our own interests mostly overlap with our like-minded partners. Our unwavering support to the 2016 Arbitral Award is a testament to this, as reflected in our regular statements, each time we need to and we do react to the situation in the South China Sea.
This is why we have been more actively involved in defense and security partnerships in the Asia-Pacific / Indo-Pacific region, in addition to promoting multilateralism and political dialogue in all relevant fora. In 2022, France was admitted as an observer in the ADMM+ expert groups. We are fully committed to contribute to a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific together with the Philippines and other ASEAN and like-minded partners.
The relevance of the 2016 Award
6 years ago, in 2018, the launch of a French Indo-Pacific strategy underlined a new, holistic approach to our interests in the region. Defense of sovereignty, global commons and economy are the main pillars of this strategy, all meant to be supported by political dialogue, multilateralism and, again, strict adherence to the rule of law. In that regard, the 2016 Award is remarkable as it addresses all these issues:
– declaring the ‘nine-dash line’ contrary to the UNCLOS, it confirms both Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal form part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines;
– it condemns the 2012 moratorium on fishing in the South China Sea falling within the Philippine EEZ, and upholds the rights of Filipino fishermen to engage in traditional fishing in Scarborough Shoal;
– It points out the “failure to prevent Chinese fishing vessels engaging in harmful harvesting activities of endangered species at Scarborough Shoal, Second Thomas Shoal and other features in the Spratly Islands, including through island-building”;
– More importantly perhaps, it points out the “total disregard of good seamanship and neglect in any precaution” regarding the international regulations for preventing collisions at Sea (COLREG).
Daily news keeps on reminding us these issues only worsened since then, requiring increased vigilance and resources from all like-minded partners. In this context, France made a clear choice to significantly step up its bilateral relation with the Philippines. The recent launch of our “Blue Nations” initiative reflects our Indo-Pacific strategy diversified approach in the maritime domain. We are working closely with the Philippine authorities to prepare the 2025 UN Ocean Conference that will be held in Nice next June. As the 2016 Award pointed out, environment protection and the upholding of sovereignty are the two sides of the same token, and benefit from each other. In that regard, undoubtedly, the Philippines are a first-rate witness the world should hear more about.
Expanding Defense Cooperation between France and the Philippines
The development of our defense cooperation perhaps best show the reinforced mutual trust between our two countries, stemming from the decision of both Presidents Macron and Marcos to strengthen our strategic partnership.
Accordingly, the Minister of Armed forces Sébastien Lecornu came for an official visit last December 2023. It is telling to recall that it was the very first visit of a French Minister of Armed forces in the country. Together with Secretary Teodoro, a letter of intent was signed to design the way to a stronger defense partnership, in all areas of strategic, training, industrial domains…
This letter of intent knows quite a high speed in the implementation process. Announced by Minister Lecornu in December, a resident defense mission opened last June 17th. It is headed by our Defense Attaché Captain Stephan Litzler, who is with us today. This guarantees that we will bring even further our joint endeavors in the defense domain, that are more and more substantial.
This will also be of utmost importance on the way to negotiating our Visiting Forces Agreement as both Ministers agreed in December. Now that the spectacular negotiation with Japan has come to the impressive result we saw last week – and congratulations for that, we are working hard to be one of the countries next in line.
This year, France served for the first time as an active participant in the bilateral maritime Balikatan exercise through the participation of the fregate Vendémiaire. A few weeks later, the French Navy’s Bretagne destroyer made a port call in Manila. And at the end of this month, end of July, the Pegase Mission will stop over in the Philippines for the first time, with a deployment of a French Air and Space Force contingent. This will strengthen our joint commitment to uphold the freedom of navigation and overflight, essential to keep an open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region. These operational activities result from more regular interactions between our authorities.
In terms of the French operational activity precisely, the Philippines rank third in the Southeast Asia region this year. This is a remarkable change, that shows how much Paris has been paying more and more attention to the geopolitical trends around here, and the unique position of the Philippines in that regard. The partnership between France and the Philippines, two maritime, Blue Nations, of the Pacific region, who share the values of democracy, the rule of law, and promote multilateralism and international law, is getting stronger and stronger.
