France renews vow to defend freedom of navigation as it showcases fighter jets in the Philippines

CLARK, Philippines (AP) — France renewed a commitment to help defend freedom of navigation and overflight in the Asia-Pacific Sunday and said that its supersonic fighter jets — a pair of which landed for the first time in the Philippines — and advance military power would enable it to respond rapidly to any humanitarian or security crisis in the region.

France is also working to quickly conclude a defense pact that would allow it to deploy a larger number of forces for joint exercises to the Philippines, French Ambassador to Manila Marie Fontanel said.

France has moved to broaden its defense engagements in the Indo-Pacific region, including with the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations.

That dovetails with the effort of the administration of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to boost his country’s territorial defense by allowing a larger US military presence in the Philippines under a 2014 defense agreement and by building security alliances with Asian and Western nations as it deals with China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea.

An annual French air force mission called Pegase, which showcases its combat power and travels to friendly countries to deepen defense relations, arrived over the weekend at Clark air base, a part of the former U.S. Air Force base, north of Manila, with two French-made Rafale fighter jets and air force cargo and transport aircraft.

The French air force flew a small group of journalists, including from The Associated Press, aboard an Airbus A400M cargo aircraft over Philippine waters facing the South China Sea Sunday to demonstrate its crucial capability to undertake aerial refueling. But pockets of turbulence prompted the French military to abort the maneuver for safety reasons.

Philippine air force personnel will also get the chance to fly onboard the Rafale jets and familiarize themselves with the aircraft. The fighter jets have been a “game changer,” French air force Brig. Gen. Guillaume Thomas, who was heading the air force mission, told a news conference.

“They enable us to go very far and very fast and to be able to react very quickly…in case of a humanitarian crisis or even security crisis,” Thomas said. “We are able to deploy forces from France to be in this area in the Pacific in a very short notice.”

The French air force mission “is not designed to target any specific country or any specific situation” and does not aim to escalate regional tensions, Fontanel said.

France and the Philippines have begun preliminary talks on a status-of-forces agreement that would provide a legal framework and enable troops from each country to hold exercises in the other’s territory. France has been tasked to finish an initial draft of the agreement by September that would be the basis of future talks, Fontanel said.

Aside from France, the Philippines has been holding separate talks with Canada and New Zealand for such agreements. It signed a similar pact with Japan earlier this month.

China has strongly criticized such alliance-building and large-scale U.S. military exercises in the Philippines, saying the Philippines is “ganging up” with countries from outside Asia, and warned that military drills could instigate a confrontation and undermine regional stability.

Philippine military officials have dismissed China’s criticism, saying the drills and alliances are aimed at boosting Manila’s territorial defense and are not directed at any particular country.

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Associated Press journalist Haruka Nuga contributed to this report from Bangkok.

Jim Gomez, The Associated Press