French_surveillance_mission_in_Vanuatu_EEZ_waters_by_French_Navy_s_Falcon_Guardiian_jet_and_US_Coast_Guards Photo: French Defence Ministry
The outgoing commander of the French Pacific fleet, Commodore Geoffroy d'Andigné, is warning of rising tensions in the Pacific Ocean and of the need to prepare.
Looking back on his past two years at the helm of the French Pacific fleet from his Papeete headquarters, departing Commodore d'Andigné said he has been busy reinforcing the protection of French Polynesia's huge Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) with an area equivalent to that of Europe.
He said this came in the face of encounters with military vessels that he had never seen before.
"We have seen Iranian ships cross our EEZ, we have seen Chinese vessels approach the EEZ at Christmas 2022. This shows a military deployment which increasingly affects all the regions of the world. It signals something for which we have to prepare..."
"We are in a world where tensions are rising. And so we have to anticipate this capacity and manage this space and reaffirm our role to protect Polynesia and the Polynesians."
Commodore Geoffroy d’Andigné, right, and visiting Vice-Admiral Karl Thomas, US 7th Pacific fleet commander, in Papeete, October 2023. Photo: Ministère des Armées
Commodore d'Andigné warned against a false sense of security in the Pacific Ocean, or to think that a conflict on the other side of the world would not affect the region.
"If there was a conflict, it would not be regional, it would be global, it would be everyone's concern," he told local media Radio 1.
Last week, d'Andigné handed over his command to Commodore Guillaume Pinget, 51, a former commander of aircraft-carrier Charles de Gaulle.
Out of the Papeete base, Commodore Guillaume commands the French Naval forces for the whole Pacific Ocean, as well as all of the French Armed Forces in French Polynesia.
In October 2023, after a series of visits and exchanges, it also reinforced its links with the Japan-based US 7th Pacific fleet in Yokosuka through the appointment of a permanent representative French naval officer to better liaise and coordinate with US Naval forces in the Pacific.