France’s current crisis in New Caledonia was far from the main preoccupation at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the influential forum held annually in Singapore, which brought together the main military and security players of the Indo-Pacific region from May 31 to June 2. Tensions surrounding the future of Taiwan remained the main focus of attention for most countries in the region, although Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was on hand to raise awareness of the situation in his country. The violence that has shaken the French archipelago in the Pacific Ocean since mid-May is affecting France’s Indo-Pacific strategy and being closely followed by many South Pacific players, prompting Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu to react on Saturday, June 1.
Invited to the Shangri-La Dialogue with a whole delegation of French military personnel, including the second-in-command of the Armed Forces General Staff, Pierre Vandier, Lecornu was forced to address the situation in New Caledonia’s capital Nouméa on Saturday, during a session appropriately entitled “Enhancing crisis management amid rising competition.”
Although he refrained from uttering the word “New Caledonia” during his own speech, Lecornu was prompted to speak about it by a question from the audience, mainly made up of officials and specialist researchers.
“There is a part of the younger generation [in New Caledonia] that is currently being manipulated behind the scenes by other countries that are forcing violence in an attempt to obtain independence,” replied the French minister, without naming any specific country, as Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, had done on May 16, directly pointing the finger at the role of Azerbaijan. “This is quite dramatic and must be condemned. You should all condemn what’s going on right now, because it’s not part of our value system, and I don’t know of a single country that doesn’t face these kinds of political and social issues,” added Lecornu.
International spillover risks
Lecornu’s comments illustrated the concerns of French intelligence services about Azerbaijan’s increasingly well-documented interference in New Caledonia. They also illustrated Paris’s concerns about the risk of international spillover from the New Caledonian situation, despite the fact that the case is still officially regarded as a domestic political issue.
Over the past 10 months, several incidents involving Azerbaijan have been documented by French intelligence, Le Monde has learned. As far back as December 2023, on the sidelines of a visit by Lecornu to Nouméa, three Azerbaijani agents were spotted working with Kanak pro-independence activists. One of them was taken into custody by the General Directorate of Internal Security. More recently, during a May 14-16 meeting in Venezuela of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization, the French services also noted that the Kanak pro-independence delegation was accompanied by two Azerbaijanis. One of them, a certain Farid S., who has lived in Paris, cultivates links with pan-Africanist circles, whom the French military sees as one of the catalysts for their eviction from countries in the Sahel region.
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