 Madame la sénatrice, cher pénis, monsieur le ministre. Bonjour à tous et à tous, merci de votre intérêt pour l'Australie et les relations pour l'Australie. Merci beaucoup pour tout de vous, pour votre présence et votre interest dans la relation du parti de France et de l'Australie. Je voudrais dire que, ensemble avec le ministre pour les armes forces, nous sommes très heureux d'y hoster aujourd'hui. Le ministre du Premier ministre et le ministre pour les armes forces et les ministres de la Revenue d'affaires d'Australie. C'est la première fois que nos consultations sur les issues aux armes internationales et de la défense s'organisent. la personne, les résultats sont toujours mieux que quand nous parlons de l'internat. Donc c'est génial de pouvoir vous voir encore. Je suis heureuse d'avoir eu la chance de vous rencontrer pour le premier temps, le ministre. Alors, bienvenue à vous tous. Notre objectif aujourd'hui était de continuer le travail que nous avons fait pour rébuilder une puissance ambitieuse entre nos deux pays. Ce travail a été entretenu pendant les dernières mois et je crois que nous tous aimerions être parmi les ministres de l'Ontario. Et l'ambition, comme je l'ai dit, parce que c'est la mission de la Présidente de la République et le ministre de l'Australie après la rencontre du 1er juillet en Paris. Ce visage important de la Présidente de l'Australie a lead to a joint communiqué that was published and has served as our compass and cause. It recalled, first of all, of our community of values, democratic countries, strongly committed to the respect of the rule of law of the international order based on our common plan of the United Nations. And that unites us. So today, once again, we were able to acknowledge that our positions were very close on the major international issues but the war led by Russia and Ukraine or the challenges all around the world and in particular in the Indo-Pacific region. And beyond this proximity as democratic countries and on the rule of law, the head state and the Australian Prime Minister asked us to work on a roadmap based on three pillars, defence and security, climate action, education and culture. And I believe I can say that we are making good progress in each of these three areas. And today in particular we agreed that long history and our many shared interests in the Pacific, a region where we all neighbors should lead us to make the deepening of our cooperation in the region and with the countries of the region a cross-cutting theme in the entire relationship. France will devote more resources to this. This year we will multiply by 2.5 the budget of the French Development Agency for projects in the Pacific. It is an effort that I am meant to announce here today. And for the first time we will also contribute to infrastructure financing with a green harbour project in Papua New Guinea together with Australia. And this is only one example amongst others. I could also mention the coordinated response which both our countries together with New Zealand bring together in case of natural disasters with the France mechanism which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. More broadly, regarding climate action the Australian government has made some ambitions commitments. We commended these on the occasion of the visit of the Prime Minister on the 1st of July and I would like to commend them once again here. And in our opinion these commitments very much adjusted for Australia's bid to host COP 31 in 2026. So COP 21, COP 31, that's already a good part of the ship. And Australia is considering doing it in partnership with Pacific Island countries and territories. So some 10 years down the road after COP 21 we believe it is an outstanding application that we will support when the time comes and we talked about it. From a bilateral point of view the fight against global warming holds promising prospects. In particular we are working to strengthen relationships between France and Australia from research centres or universities as well as our companies but also of the Pacific countries on energy transition challenges. We also have some great projects in the field of education and culture as you will see in the joint communique. I will stop here on this general introduction. I will first leave the floor to my colleague and friend Sebastien Le Corp, new minister for the armed forces and once again it gives me great pleasure to host both our Australian colleagues here. Thank you Madam Minister. Thank you to Catherine for organising this plus 2. Successfully delighted to welcome our two counterparts in rebuilding this relationship between Canberra and Paris. We've decided with the minister to multiply meeting opportunities to densify the dialogue. No tabou subject across the issues with the deputy prime minister and defence minister. It's our third official meeting today first bilateral organised in Singapore on the fringes of the Shangri-La meeting as soon as I came into office when he came into office. A bilateral with two high points in breast a few weeks back we're able to have discussions on the operational capabilities of the French Navy and an important memorial occasion around our combatants the Australian soldiers who fell for our freedom and that sets into perspectives that perhaps the recent disagreements by focusing on the major sacrifice of the Australian speaking as minister for the memorials and this plus 2, 2 plus 2 allows us to roll out a number of operational decisions regarding security and defence matters. Four points were discussed specifically some find a solution today but with a subject of a discussion previously at the Brest meeting the minister will no doubt confirm the question of aid to Ukraine where we discussed the last time in Brest with an important effort undertaken by Australia from the outset as support to Ukraine and with Richard we said that it might be useful to offer our Ukrainian partners and friends a joint solution that's going to be done particularly on the 155 ammunition we've discussed recently a lot of equipment that can be gifted to Ukraine in fact for time to time in the media people don't focus on fuel, spare parts, munitions which is in fact the number one request from the Ukrainians on the daily basis several thousand 155 millimetre shells will be produced joint with a novel partnership between Australia and France between industries for France next well known that will lead this venture and Australia can bring powder for these shells and this partnership will allow over time, over the coming weeks and months to assist Ukraine I won't say any more the minister will return to that also our ability to train in supporting Ukraine more resilient and more enduring over time and we're right to put pressure on our defence contractors and doing that with our two countries our two states of course we're prepared for the long haul exchange refuse secondly on security in the pacific region singularly in the south pacific is obviously defence of the French national territory includes Wallace and Foutena New Caledonia, French Polynesia often say we're neighbours in the pacific which really does give us a few rights and duties and an ability to assist and interact with Australia which is specific and compels us to a form of strategic closeness with our Australian friends the Australian Chaud is here be meeting Thierry Burkar the French chief of defence forces to review the various operations and joint training exercises very often maritime the southern cross will be held once again in 2023 against illegal and unregulated fishing not unconnected to the diplomatic efforts on climate protection recalled by the minister joint commitments in the air pitch black was held successfully a few weeks ago and which for both our governments is a starting point in other words a foundation below which on the operational front we don't want to go more concrete translation since it's a bedrock we're going to task our respective armed forces to build a training agenda operational for the years to come with maybe multi-year not just for 23 24 but to consider further out 25 26 27 what might be done they've been understood the priority of both our governments is obviously respect for sovereignty of each country and state the Pacific goes of course for Australia goes for France overseas territory also respect for the sovereignty of other island states in the Pacific sovereignty in the edge on land but above all maritime sovereignty and it's a major challenge at a time when we're seeing a number of denials of access to maritime routes and that's a key point all the more true the president will return to this as the coming weeks but the military French military present the South Pacific will be strengthened in the coming years our military budget presented du Marseille a few days ago with this all-time budget effort of 413 billion euros as a specific Pacific chapter strengthened naval capability on the Numia naval base bolstering our strategic or tactical capability and fighter aircraft the president will have occasion to spread out this roadmap that's an opportunity for Australia to work on interoperability between our two armed forces ability to train and joint of third part I'll accelerate a major training exercise we know that many Pacific states spreading needs for training of their own armed forces not unrelated to climate change civil security missions protect the local populations we have offers to make jointly with Australia by making sure that there aren't competing training offers and that complementary to one another the event of natural disaster the minister recall the successor the France agreement but from Nomia we can perhaps pre-position more forces to project them in order to bring relief to the states in the areas one of the points we discussed extensively fourthly we can't talk about security in the Pacific without showing an interest in space the extent of the distances very long distances an ability to have a global view of security in this water continent which Australia is of course the most important island one of the major points of effort for our armed forces there again in our military budget there'll be an historic effort in terms of space and military to observe the earth from space to communicate from space but also for the first time to secure space from space goes without saying there space-based capabilities will have specific functions that we seek to develop Australia with our industry sometimes things make sense for purchase or leasing we have French and Australian companies developing solutions now where again we'd like to work this interoperability we see it's our generation of decision makers that must take the right decision otherwise our countries will be up behind in 10-15 years a letter of intent has been signed for the launchers Australia has needs to launch a number of satellites it's the beginning of a new cooperation venture starting with the signature of this LOI I'll have occasion to travel to Nomea in 2020 for the SP the MMM of the Defence Minister Summit in the South Pacific organised by France supported us with the various countries in the area to allow us to host it the Deputy Prime Minister will be that as Defence Minister of Australia will have further bilateral exchanges between Canberra and Paris via Nomea and that's one of the historic items to roll out a security agenda across the area thank you well thank you can I Penny and I both are being here in Paris to renew my really good friendship with Sebastian and to meet you today Catherine today we've conducted our meetings on a first name basis with a high degree of warmth as we've gone about the important business of the bilateral relationship between Australia and France and I think the personal warmth between the four of us in a perfect way the return of warmth to the bilateral relationship between Australia and France and that really began last year when Prime Minister Albanese met with President Macron here in Paris which really began a new era in French-Australian relations which we are really happy to progress today with our 2 plus 2 meeting and that could not be coming at a more important time given the fragility of the global rules based order which we see in the Indo-Pacific but which we obviously also see in Eastern Europe France is our closest neighbour France is a liberal democracy in the Indo-Pacific which shares a vision of a globe which is governed by a global rules based order and in that sense as our closest neighbour France is really in the very top tier of relationships that Australia has with any country in the world and that's been absolutely reaffirmed in the meeting that we have had today and as we have conducted our conversations today much discussion about how as 2 countries which stand for the global rules based order how we can do more to work together in upholding it that's very much the case in respect of Eastern Europe and in supporting Ukraine in the face of the unprovoked aggression by Russia and as Sebastian said we are really pleased to be able to announce today that we are working together in providing a supply of 155mm ammunition to Ukraine this forms part of the ongoing level of support that both France and Australia is providing Ukraine to make sure that Ukraine is able to stay in this conflict and be able to see it concluded on its own terms it is a multi-million dollar project and it represents as Sebastian said a novel cooperation between Australian and French defence industry and we are really proud today to be able to make that announcement it speaks of the growing and deepening relationship between our two defence forces which we've seen with high level meetings as Sebastian said at the chief of defence between our two forces at the level of our departments of defence we are seeing a much greater tempo of Australia and France working with each other in exercises in quite a sood in talisman sabre and in pitch black last year where France participated at an unprecedented level this speaks to a growing military to military relationship and we are also seeing it of the reciprocal access agreement which we seek to pursue which will see greater access between Australia and France with our respective defence facilities this is a step that Australia has only taken with but a very few countries and to be moving down this path with France speaks to how importantly we regard our relationship with France and our defence relationship with France the letter of intent that we signed today in terms of cooperation in respect of space we see this as a really important field where we can be working together and it also speaks to a much greater cooperation which we both aspire to in terms of technological cooperation between our two defence forces and finally there is no more important place for this cooperation to be given expression than in the Pacific where both France and Australia live and this is not only in deepening the relationship between our defence forces in the Pacific but working together in deepening our respective relationships with the defence forces of the Pacific island countries countries such as Papua New Guinea Fiji, Tonga and there is much that we can do together in deepening those relationships as Sebastian said working particularly in respect of training is a real opportunity for France and Australia to work together to build the capability of the defence forces of Pacific island countries all of this speaks to a growing level of cooperation between our two countries not just in respect of defence but across the board what we really see today is an ongoing evolution in what really is a new era of cooperation, friendship and warmth between Australia and France Thank you very much Can I start by thanking Catherine and Sebastian for your generous hospitality today in this beautiful setting and to say how much we appreciate the effort you've made in getting the 2 plus 2 on track today and how much we've appreciated you making so much time available to us, I was very appreciative Catherine you called me very early on when I first became foreign minister and we've met I think this is the third time so I appreciate very much the effort you've invested in this relationship France, we are deeply invested too in this relationship as Richard said what we see, we have great ambition in this relationship France is a global power it's a member of the P5 it's a nuclear power it's a member of the G7 it is key to the European Union and critically it is an Indo-Pacific power and we share values I think Sebastian used the phrase strategic closeness we do, we share values we share interests at a time where the world is being reshaped on the cooperation with France in the Indo-Pacific region we both share an interest in, a desire for a world that is peaceful that is stable, that is prosperous and that is respectful of sovereignty and the work we are doing together and seek to do together is directed towards that end a world that is peaceful, stable of sovereignty as Catherine said we are pleased with the work that is being done both by officials and also the subject of previous discussions between Catherine and I for the bilateral roadmap that the President and the Prime Minister described and we look forward to that being finalised in the near future it outlines the cooperation with a focus on the Indo-Pacific can I also thank France and Catherine for the indication today of the support for Australia seeking to host the conference of the parties number 31 climate change is as we all know an existential issue we respect and are grateful for France's leadership in establishing the Paris Agreement we want to through this bid to host the conference of the parties we want to work with Pacific Island nations to elevate their voices in the international forum on climate change because they bring to that discussion a very acute and existential understanding of what climate change means we spoke a great deal about the cooperation over and above climate change in the Pacific we recognise that the Pacific Island forum and the members of that forum which includes French territories is an arena where we want to cooperate very closely and we look forward to continuing to do that so I want to simply close by thanking you again for your generous hospitality and warm dialogue today thank you Ben si vous avez quelques questions for our guests we stand ready to answer questions from the Australian from the Australian newspaper America has just revealed some quite gross deficiencies in their naval shipyards the French ministers can you trust Australia and is President Macron's offer to supply interim submarines still on the table and to Deputy Prime Minister Miles on the same theme how are you looking to bridge that ever widening capacity gap for nuclear propelled submarines on the Australian capabilities I'm sorry that I'm not in a position to we're obviously working closely with the United States and the United Kingdom to develop a nuclear powered submarine capability and to develop the optimal pathway to achieve that capability and we will be in a position to make our announcements about that soon which is the schedule that was in fact established 18 months ago I think the short answer to your question is that there are no plans for any conventional conventionally powered interim submarine capability as we move towards gaining the nuclear powered submarine capability which we are working towards Merci nous avons une deuxième question de Rob Harris second question from Rob Harris from the city morning in the past few days there's been a leaked memo from a US general with the Air Force Minahan warning of potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait by 2025 given both interests in the Indo-Pacific here do you take his views seriously and secondly considering the increased military aid to the Ukraine from the west how well resourced both nations to undertake a conflict in the Indo-Pacific if I may hello Rob, good to see you can I start by making this point and I've made it at the United Nations and also in Washington when I was there and it's a point about agency and it's a point about guardrails and the point about agency is this we all have a choice to make about how we deal with escalating strategic competition and the choice that we believe we should make is to utilise our efforts to elevate our capability in order to promote peace and stability and that is the focus of our capability piece that is the focus of our diplomatic piece and that is the focus of how we will talk about these sorts of issues it's critical for humanity that we do not allow the competition between great powers to escalate into conflict that's critical because it would be disastrous and so what I would say is we ought never assume that we have no agency we should be one arguing for the sorts of guardrails that president Biden has spoken about to ensure that competition does not escalate into conflict and we should in relation to Taiwan as you know we should be resolute in our view that there should be no unilateral change to the status quo en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho en écho Bonjour, j'aurai voulu savoir quel est le montant du contrat de l'extrême, ce que vous avez décidé plusieurs millions de dollars. Vous paraissez avoir, le prochain, plusieurs coopérations à la fois opérationnelles dans un temps spatial des défenses. Et pour ce qui est du stade de l'hôpital, avec le space dans l'industrie, mais il constate strictement les marches militaires et on regarde la différence australienne. Il me semble qu'il n'y a rien de pour le moment. Et ensuite, vous allez être visite d'un membre du pays au fond de l'Union. Vous pensez qu'il y aurait un tour dans ces aléons pour France, un ou l'autre, à un point ? La relation avec les États-Unis et l'Union du Parc des Orques n'est pas une aléon, c'est un relation fondamentale qui est à part la part de la technologie. Et évidemment, le coeur de cela maintenant est le pays et l'Union en travaillant ensemble, évidemment avec l'Australie, pour permettre à l'Australie de avoir une capacité de submarine nucléaire. Nous travaillons très proche avec France. Et ça a été le ténère de la conversation que nous avons eu aujourd'hui. Nous travaillons très proche sur la construction de notre interoperabilité, nous travaillons très proche sur la construction, nous travaillons avec un grand sens de coopération entre nos forces défense, nous travaillons beaucoup plus proche, beaucoup plus proche en respect de notre industrie de défense et de la technologie de partage. Et donc, nous voulons voir une construction et une construction de notre relation avec France dans un contexte défense. Et ça a vraiment été le sujet de la conversation que nous avons eu aujourd'hui. Première question sur l'Ukraine. L'Ukraine, comme ceci, nous parlons de plusieurs milliers de chelons. Nous n'avons pas de plus de confiance pour le docteur français de la discrétion sur l'aide d'Ukraine sur ces fonctions stratégiques. Vous appréciez l'idée pour nous, c'est d'aider l'aide signifiant, par définition, nous regardons un classe signifiant, ok, des milliers, et encore plus, un effort qui est continu, parce qu'en ce temps, parce que ce sont des frères ukrainiens, il y a une sorte d'aide, le ministre de la colonne, c'est juste là-bas, que l'Ukraine ne sait pas tout ça, mais l'Union ukraine, nous a mis en place la régularité, la predictabilité, et la reliabilité des délivres qui ont été réalisés, le mandat, donné à notre industrie, par les deux gouvernements, c'est d'avoir un offert qui est robuste, et particulièrement résilient, avec le temps, par sa capacité d'appliquer la reliabilité des armées ukrainiennes. Second, vous vouliez vite entrer en espèce, ce n'est pas une capacité militaire, je peux apprécier ça en France, on n'a pas suffisamment expliqué ou insisté sur notre objectif militaire, et j'ai l'occasion de faire ça sous l'autorité du président, si Richard me permet de répéter un point de nos conversations que nous avons eu, depuis que nous avons assumé l'offre de la collectivité. J'ai mis la question à mon counterpart Richard, est-ce qu'au cas, est-ce que c'est un bloc, ou est-ce que c'est un bloc possible de capacité ou de coopération militaire pour le futur ? La réponse est non. Et Richard, sinon nous ne serions pas ici en prenant ce 2 plus 2, avant vous. Qu'est-ce que c'est un tract ? On est en train d'y aller, d'abord, nous avons plus de coopération conventionnelle de capacité, de goles, de maritimes, de l'air, mais on voit, pour un grand nombre de raisons, que ce n'est pas grâce à la décision albinésie, mais à la décision des prédécesseurs de nos deux guests ce matin, il y a évidemment une forme de rigidité dans les programmes, comme ils l'ont été déclarés. J'ai vu cette rigidité dans les programmes que les forces françaises ont eu. Donc, le parc que nous avons essayé de créer ce matin, c'est de dire, on va essayer de le faire sur une blanche de papier, c'est-à-dire, sur les capacités pour lesquelles nous avons essayé de développer pour le futur. C'est facile. Et cette LOI en espèce est vraiment venu à la même heure. Nous avons eu cette idée quand nous avons rencontré un peu de weeks ailleurs, par looking at the respective requirements of our own satellites and the need for launches, First Avenue or Cooperation Collaboration, or because requirements and certain military functions capacity to develop or by jointly a number of satellites for joint capabilities or le leasing of image flows or services, satellite services from one government to another. I'm being deliberately vague and generalist. I mean, mandate has been given to the armed forces and the equivalent of the weapons procurement executive on the Australian side to develop a target in 2020. It's key because the immensity of the Pacific gives this challenge. We see maritime surveillance as 30, 40 years ago. It doesn't make sense for the next 30, 40 years. So space is one of the elements of the solution. Other segments where I'd like us to have an operational dial. Of course the drones, French Polynesia is big, is like the size of the whole of Europe. New Caledonia and the Seoul Caledonia Territory is as big as Austria. Guyana is as big as Portugal moving away from the area. So it goes without saying. The very size of our overseas territories presents us with a challenge on the technology front to ensure security and sovereignty and that. Typically if we start insuring the sovereignty and security from Numia for all the territory, territorial waters and the EZ, it wouldn't make sense not to do it in partnership in interoperability with Australia our direct neighbour. What's more is that we're there to assist one another in possible crisis scenarios. The starting point, it's exacting. It's demanding. It will take time. It'll take time. We have to recognize it. It's going to take time. But this strategic closeness that we're trying to kick-start, let's go with operational closeness between the armed forces and possibly technological closeness on future segments. That's the ambition. I'm sure it'll work. Ladies and gentlemen, the ministers will take one more question. AFP, You don't want to give more details, but I'm going to try and insist a bit. I'm trying to understand why, for example, these 155 munitions must be produced jointly. I'm in the powder that you mentioned coming from Australia. It's not available in France or is there a resolve to present cooperation within the realm of communication and President Zelensky of swiftness. What's the delivery timeframe for this? Ambo, thank you. There are, so I'll be vague, in line with what Sebastian has said, and that's important in terms of protecting the operational fidelity of what this will be used for. But there are some unique capabilities that exist in Australia and some synergies that can be achieved by Australia and France working together in relation to the supply of this ammunition. So there actually are complementarities between our defence industrial basis which allow this to happen, so it makes sense. But it's also true that we wanted to act together as a statement about how importantly Australia and France regardent the support of Ukraine in the current conflict. And both of us have supported Ukraine separately in other ways, but we wanted to make it really clear that Australia and France do stand together in support of Ukraine in the face of this Russian aggression. So there is genuine complementarity between our defence industrial basis which allows this particular project to happen. But, yeah, we want to shameably want to work together and it's a really important statement that Australia and France is working together in supporting Ukraine. Peut-être quelques éléments, perhaps a few points as a follower. Firstly, we stand by the pressure that we're putting on our armed forces at the time being. The President referred to war economy, the Satteri trade fair last summer. All countries are faced with this reality to have an armaments industry that must produce faster, controlling its costs and managing its stock levels. We're all in the same boat. It's one of the issues that we're addressing as part of our ministerial meetings at NATO. So, in the enablers that allow us to give visibility, exert pressure on the armaments industry, of course, what we can do as part of our military budget, but to really massify certain orders and this aid to Ukraine at two countries, of course, just simply allows us to pull and to build up and to share the, share the, if it's a bit mercantile, share the bill. That capability means we can do it at two by limiting, of course. How can I say this? The budgetary effort and, sorry, and by not drawing, not leving, drawing on our armed forces stocks. Therein is the virtuous aspect of what's proposed, the delivery that's going to go straight from the contractor heading for the Ukrainian army in better timelines. OK, you're asking about the timeline. Expected first deliveries in this first quarter. There we need to respond rapidly and, of course, we can use the various stock replenishments with the next, but if we're announcing it, it is that we can deliver it rapidly. Merci beaucoup. Merci.