France is famous for fashion, and not just the kind you wear. Intellectual fashions, too, seem to emanate from Paris. The French genius for fashion is now reshaping that geopolitical concept du jour, “the Indo-Pacific region.” For the United States, the Indo-Pacific is an extension of the Pacific Ocean area patrolled by its Japan-based 7th Fleet. For Japan and Australia, too, the Pacific comes first. But for France, the Indo-Pacific begins east of Africa and continues to the western American seaboard, mirroring India’s understanding of geography. While the United States and its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue partners Australia and Japan see Indo-Pacific strategy as a way to draw India into their geopolitical standoff with China, France has taken the term at face value and put India at its center.
That doesn’t mean that France’s Indo-Pacific strategy is just a seasonal fad. France’s official Indo-Pacific strategy document emphasizes the country’s role as a “mediating, inclusive and stabilizing power” in the region, and French President Emmanuel Macron speaks rousingly of answering the call of history to fulfill France’s Indo-Pacific “destiny.” Echoes of the colonial era aside, France has 8,000 troops in the region and a highly capable nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to back them up. That gives France a lot more skin in the game than, for example, its European partner and rival Germany, which instead of a true regional strategy makes do with a limp endorsement of Indo-Pacific multilateralism.
