The French Strategy in the Indian Ocean and the Potential for Indo-French Cooperation- par “Isabelle Saint-Mézard”

Executive Summary

This policy report analyses the articulation between the French strategy in the Indian Ocean on the one hand and the Indo-French partnership on the other. It first highlights France’s fairly unique position, as a country claiming to be a nation of the Indian Ocean Rim. Such a claim primarily lies on the presence of the French overseas territories of La Reunion and Mayotte in the Southwest Indian Ocean. The report also underlines France’s strong military focus on the Northwest Indian Ocean, with two inter-services bases respectively located in Djibouti and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). lire la suite