France’s Indo-Pacific Approach: Salvaging the Rules-Based Order and Staying Relevant

As a P5 country and an Indo-Pacific nation, France aims to act as a balancing power that would offer an alternative to the choice between China and the United States, which is increasingly faced by countries around the world, especially in the Indo-Pacific. The “Macron Doctrine” is set to make France consolidate its role as a balancing, united, radiant, influential power, a driving force for European autonomy that preserves the multilateral mechanisms based on international law. The trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS) shock of 2021 was a blow for Paris, but France distances itself from upholding a continued U.S. dominance, and defines its strategy as complementary with that of the U.S. Seeing China as a destabilizing factor in the Indo-Pacific (French Defense Strategy 2021) and a systemic rival (National Strategic Review 2022) of liberal international order, France supports a multipolar order that would allow for it to pursue its own approach, while also reducing China’s influence in the region.