Sea Control - Sea Control 424 - French Naval Diplomacy with Rear Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey (French Version)

Episode Date: April 2, 2023

Rear Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey discusses French naval diplomacy and international naval cooperation. Rear Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey is in charge of the French Navy's international relations and was formerly the Commander of French forces in the Pacific. Alexia Bouallagui edited and produced this episode.

Hello, and welcome to the Sea Control Podcast. I'm Nathan Miller. Today, Alexia Boualagi and Rear Admiral Jean-Mathieu Rey discuss French naval diplomacy and international cooperation. A quick side note, this is another dual-language episode. You are listening to the French version. If you prefer the English, please return to your feed and download that episode. Alexia Boualagi edited and produced today's podcast. CIMSEC is looking for a volunteer to join our technical team and support our web operations. We're looking for someone with a background in WordPress implementation and support, as well as knowledge in web hosting and networking. Some knowledge of identity management and security operations is also helpful. Please reach out to

content at simsec.org to share your background and discuss. I would like to pause here to highlight our local chapters. Whether you are in South Korea, Egypt, Singapore, France, New York, India, or the Caribbean, chances are there's a SimSec local chapter near you. You can find a full listing of local chapters and contact information on our website at simsec.org. So if you are interested, please reach out. Finally, I want to take this opportunity to recommend our partners in the SimSec podcast network, The Bilge Pumps. You can find Alex, Jamie, Jack, and a pile of Fire & Brew Bottles, wherever you download your podcasts. And with that, Kimber's Men.

You're listening to Sea Control, hosted by the Center for International Maritime Technology. Alois, camarades de bord, et bienvenue à bord de Sea Control. Mon invité aujourd'hui est le chef des relations internationales de la Marine Nationale, le contre-amiral Jean Mathieu Ray. Admiral, thank you for joining us again for a new edition of this podcast. Thank you for your invitation, it's a pleasure. Could you enlighten us a little more, Admiral, please, on your professional journey,

for the listeners who do not know you yet, and tell us a little bit about your journey and your progress within the National Navy? I am a Marine officer. I joined the Navy a few years ago, after the preparatory classes. C'est un concours d'ingénieurs et donc j'ai été à l'école navale, diplômé de l'école navale comme ingénieur. École dans laquelle on devient aussi un militaire et un marin. Donc voilà les trois volets qui caractérisent mon parcours professionnel. Un parcours professionnel qui a été fait de voyage, de coopération à l'international et en particulier en Indo-Pacifique,

where I served many times, and in particular in post in this region, based in La Réunion, in New Caledonia and in Tahiti. Tahiti, where I was a few months ago, I returned from my command last September, where I commanded the Pacific Asia area and the operations that led there, in cooperation with my comrades of the Inter-Armed Command, which are based in this region of the world, but also in Djibouti and the Emirates. You know that we have forces in this area.

This is a career made of operations, because we have a national navy very engaged around the world to defend our sovereignty. I mentioned our territories, there are others, in particular in the Caraïbes, but we have armed forces engaged there. And then also for the security of the world, in the different theaters. On se souvient de la guerre du Golfe, on se souvient des interventions en Afghanistan, du Sahel, de la Syrie, de la Libye. Donc voilà mon parcours professionnel pour le volet naval qui concernait ces opérations, qui concerne encore ces opérations.

Merci beaucoup Amiral pour cette petite histoire et ces petits éclaircissements. Donc nous allons aujourd'hui parler de la diplomatie navale française, As I said very well, with Uto Begari, a warship is the best of ambassadors. And we have here, with your experience on the sea, on the ground, with men, you are going to tell us a little about these issues, the light of your new functions. As a reminder, all extreme opinions belong to us and are not representative of any institution to which we could be otherwise associated. Admiral, you are the head of the International Relations of the Navy.

Since when does this crucial position exist and what are your daily missions? Le besoin de coordonner les relations internationales existe depuis que la marine existe. Ma fonction consiste à s'assurer de la cohérence des actions de relations internationales que conduisent les autorités de la marine à travers le monde, puisque les actions diplomatiques d'ambassades mobiles commencent avec nos bateaux. Quelle que soit leur taille, dans ma carrière, j'ai eu cette chance, comme lieutenant de vaisseau, c'est-à-dire une trentaine d'années, commanding a patrol, to conduct international relations actions in the sea, but also on the ground.

We are at a moment of international relations today with the rise of strategic competition and the re-militarization in the sea. Can you enlighten us on the priorities of France? What role does it intend to play across the world and across the oceans? France is a power of balance. It is an objective, a priority, which is often recalled by the President of the Republic, the president macron and the power of balance which relies on international law and in particular sea law so france is particularly attached to freedom of navigation so how by a regular presence to in particular oppose the bypassing the denial of sea law and the political consequences of the fact accomplished there is Il y a une priorité aussi d'affirmer notre souveraineté et de protéger nos concitoyens.

Je citais en parlant d'outre-mer, ou je préfère d'ailleurs cette expression de la France sur mer, nos concitoyens qui sont dans ces îles soumis à des risques, des risques en particulier climatiques, et les choses ne vont pas en s'arrangeant. On pense à l'assistance humanitaire après cyclone, après tsunami, après catastrophe naturelle. Ce sont les priorités de la France, assurer sa souveraineté et défendre, appuyer le droit international, qui est la meilleure des façons pour vivre en paix et de façon prospère. Et ce droit international, qui est de plus en plus contesté, doit donc être défendu. Merci Amiral.

Alors, dans votre approche française de la diplomatie navale, des relations internationales, quelles sont les particularités pour la marine française par rapport aux autres acteurs dans vos relations, dans votre approche ? Est-ce qu'il y a une spécificité française sur laquelle il serait particulièrement intéressant de s'attarder ? La stratégie française est une stratégie de partenariat, de coopération. Et donc, sans être unique, c'est une caractéristique qui n'est pas partagée par la majorité des États à travers le monde. Donc, la France veut une force de proposition. C'est le cas des présences maritimes coordonnées au niveau européen. So this idea of better coordinating the action of the different nations

who are members of the European Union. It is also one of the characteristics of the action of France. It is a multilateral approach that wants to be inclusive with a service offer, if I may say. I think of MICA Center, our exchange center for information, but also for alerts in the field of maritime security. C'est ce que nous cherchons à faire dans le cadre de notre présidence de l'IONS, Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, de la même façon dans le Golfe de Guinée, pour mieux sécuriser avec nos partenaires de cette région du monde, qui est importante pour les pays riverains, mais qui est aussi importante pour la France et pour l'Europe. So, once again, without being unique, there is a very strong French commitment to maritime security,

in particular against pirates, against illegal trafficking, illegal fishing, humanitarian assistance, which I have already mentioned, and also taking environmental security into account, which is one of our concerns. I will come back to answer this question of our characteristics, what we have shared with our American and British comrades at the Paris Naval Conference a few days ago, it was January 18th, knowing that the three countries that I have just mentioned, including France, are major actors in the naval field, first because they have performing marines, because their marines are one of the elements of their dissuasion, the nuclear dissuasion. C'est extrêmement exigeant d'avoir une dissuasion nucléaire, ça veut dire que vous devez avoir des sous-marins à propulsion nucléaire qui portent des armes stratégiques ou des sous-marins à propulsion nucléaire dits d'attaque, donc qui n'ont pas d'armes nucléaires mais qui ont un réacteur nucléaire pour leur propulsion. Même chose pour les porte-avions, c'est le cas de notre porte-avions Charles de Gaulle, qui est lui aussi doublement nucléaire, That is to say that there is a nuclear propulsion, but also weapons that are embarked on board the aircraft carrier. And so these means are extremely performing means of very high technology,

with an aeronautical group, a group of Charles de Gaulle, who has an aggregating power. When we deploy it, it is currently in the Indian Ocean, at the moment we are talking about cooperation with many countries in the area. And by preparing the vows to the defenders, I made the observation that 16 nations around the world have already cooperated with the Charles de Gaulle group. It is to say this capacity to integrate our partners, in particular European. Last characteristic of France, and there it distinguishes us from our two other partners that I mentioned, these are our territories of France on the sea, our territories of France at sea, où nous avons des atouts d'être présents dans cette partie du monde,

mais aussi des devoirs de, comme je le disais précédemment, protéger nos concitoyens et répondre à leurs besoins. À ce titre-là, nous sommes membres de symposiums, Indian Ocean Naval Symposium, que j'ai déjà cité, et Western Pacific Naval Symposium, par exemple, parce que nous sommes riverains de ces deux océans. Très bien, donc beaucoup de points très intéressants à souligner for me to understand this French approach and our relationship with other global actors with

our strategic partners in a context of competition which can sometimes turn to confrontation what place for naval diplomacy how do you apprehend this role and how does it tend to aggregate to a strategy of autonomy that France would like to push with partners of course but which would tend towards a greater strategic autonomy. Naval diplomacy requires many tools. I would like to start with the one of strategic signaling, that is to say this ability to demonstrate with our partners, but towards our competitors or potential opponents,

our credibility, our determination. So to discourage potential opponents from confronting us, Knowing that it is infinitely less expensive to demonstrate strength than to engage in a conflict. And to illustrate what a strategic signal means, I return to operations that I conducted in an area where I operated again recently. I was talking about my previous post as admiral for the Pacific, Al-Pasif, at the time I was there, so in 2020-2022, the deployment of an attack nuclear submarine, the Emerald, which went as far as the Chinese seas to operate with our partners in the area,

in particular the Americans, the Japanese, but also the Australians. And so there was this affirmation of power, of presence, of France, thanks to this nuclear submarine attack, which made a long deployment. In the same way, it was the Jeanne d'Arc group, a group of amphibians and schools that deployed to Japan to conduct an ARC-21 exercise with the Japanese and the Americans, a resumption of life force of a Japanese island which is a few years away or not very far from Russia

or the People's Republic of China. So there too, the message is clear. Last example, more recent these days, the aeronautical group, the Charles de Gaulle group, which is in the Indian Ocean, to project blasts all the way to Singapore. So that's another example of this strategic signaling, deployment of our blasts, like the Air Force did until Tahiti in 2021 or until Nouméa in 2022, also with blasts.

That's the strategic signaling, and naval diplomacy participates in this action that wants to be dissuasive in the broad sense of the term. There are clear and concrete examples that will allow us to give more body to this concept and to this concrete action of naval diplomacy. To focus on the present context, we have now taken a step back in a present way. The war in Ukraine has highlighted the importance of the protection of a liberal world order based on the respect of international law, as you have pointed out, which is central to France. What impact does this have on the importance of maritime spaces? Tout d'abord, pour tous ceux qui sont concernés par les affaires stratégiques et militaires,

ça a été la surprise de la présence, le retour d'une guerre à nos portes. La guerre entre deux États souverains est à nouveau possible, puisqu'elle a commencé le 24 février, donc là c'est 2022. Donc ça c'est un fait majeur. De façon plus concrète sur les questions navales, This has, in coherence, made appear a hardening of the geopolitical context and its consequences on the ground, so the return of the naval fight, and without going back to the operations in detail in Ukraine, the naval volley with the consequences for the Russian fleet, the attack of the Moksva,

but also in the field of the mine war, this threat which reappeared in a very pregnant way, which highlighted its importance, it was something known, But there, it directly impacts the functioning of states, the functioning of countries, the life of citizens, since it has consequences on commercial flows. We think of energy, I also think of food, with consequences, not necessarily on Ukraine, a country at war, but on the old customers of Ukraine, who no longer receive the wheat of this country. So we can see that the consequences are direct, are very concrete, with a significant naval volet. In such a context, the awareness of the importance of bilateral and multilateral military cooperation

with the actors you are confronted with, with whom you are exchanging, has it increased in your feeling with the war in Ukraine? Yes, very concretely, it is of public notoriety. Certain states, including France, materially help Ukraine to defend itself. So there, the cooperations, I quoted the domain of the mine war, for what is the naval volet, are a reality. And it also requires reinforcement of cooperation with our partners on the protection of commercial flows in the different parts of the world

where we are concerned, and it's almost the whole planet, because we can see that our country and the European Union and connected to the whole world, all the oceans, are concerned with the need to secure our flows to our country or from our country to our partners. So, it's very good, you allow me to make a transition for my next question. How does the French action intend to be involved in a broader framework which is that of the European Union?

European cooperations concern different areas around the world. I will quote, to begin with, the Atalanta operation which, in the air-naval operations of the last 20 years, is a success. And the successes are not so frequent that we should not underline that of Atalanta. So the force of the European Union, it's a global approach with military operations, but also a political, economic, humanitarian aspect. In these vast maritime expanses, it is necessary to be several to be able to ensure the security of these flows that are threatened.

This European cooperation is essential to be effective. No country can do it alone. It's also true in the Gulf of Guinea. I will take a second example against illegal fishing, which is a scourge. The numbers we have in national or at the European Union level, it's almost half the fishing, about 45%, of what is fished in the Gulf of Guinea and fished illegally. So it's dramatic for the coastal countries.

c'est aussi dramatique pour les pays qui ont des accords de pêche et qui voient la ressource diminuer et être vraiment pillée. Cette approche Union européenne n'est pas contradictoire avec les engagements français de l'OTAN. Je précise qu'en 2022, les unités de la marine française sous commandement maritime de l'OTAN, donc c'est un commandement qui est basé en Angleterre, en 2022, c'est 13 000 heures.

13 000 heures de patrouille dans un cadre OTAN, c'est plus que, par exemple, nos camarades britanniques. qui ont fait 10 000 heures, c'est ce qu'ils ont annoncé. C'est pour dire deux marines comparables qui s'engagent très fortement. C'est bien complémentaire, je le dis, parce que quelquefois on oppose les deux organisations qui ont des finalités, des périmètres différents,

mais au bilan, pour ce qui est des opérations navales, il y a eu un engagement français très fort dans les deux organisations. Merci beaucoup, Amiral, pour ces précisions et cette mise en contexte pour les opérations européennes, autant et comment elles sont complémentaires et comment la France s'entend agir avec ses partenaires via this one, we can be led to question the way you deal with the different actors,

what are the challenges that you encounter, because it is true that in charge of international relations, you must be in contact with a very large number of nationalities, actors and people with diverse interests, diverse cultures, so what are the challenges that you have been able to encounter? I will take my personal example. Throughout my career, I have been led to cooperate, to work with 60 countries, about 60 countries. I counted them, 61 to be precise. And it's to illustrate the diversity.

I probably have comrades who cooperate with more countries, but I think it's their idea. It's already very important, very diverse. The first challenge, it's what we call interoperability, that is to say the ability to operate together with, again, very different means.

And so you have to agree on three main pillars. What I would say, the organization and the doctrines, that is to say that you have to be able to have comparable procedures. After that, there is the personal area, so the crews and training, the training that must be compatible. So already having a common language and common procedures, a common vocabulary, a common grammar, that requires work.

And then finally, equipment, compatible equipment, equipment that must be properly maintained, with the very strong technological evolution to which we are all subject, to which we all participate, this evolution to keep the advantage vis-à-vis our adversaries. Il s'agit de rester dans la course, mais tous ensemble. Et ça, c'est une des difficultés, parce que ça s'appuie sur une technologie, sur une industrie qui est parfois, qui est souvent, qui est le plus souvent en concurrence. Pour parler clairement, on travaille au sein de l'Union européenne avec des partenaires allemands, hollandais, espagnols, italiens, qui ont eux aussi une belle industrie,

dont les champions sont en concurrence avec nos champions français. Il faut arriver à construire quand même cette interopérabilité so that at the end of the day, in operation, we are all interoperable together. That's really the challenge. It's a permanent concern and it's not at all won, again because it's based on an industry which, by construction, is most often in competition. We imagine with these different countries

in which you are in contact, with which you exchange, you work closely, we wonder if you have moments, experiences that you would like to highlight that have particularly marked you by their structured character ou tout simplement parce qu'ils vous ont marqué? J'ai trois exemples en tête.

Du plus proche au plus loin, géographiquement, puisque je vous parle de Paris. Le plus proche, c'est la coopération avec les Britanniques et les Américains que j'ai cités dans l'Atlantique Nord. Des opérations de soutien à notre dissuasion. C'est vraiment du très haut niveau. On boxe dans une cour qui est très exigeante. C'est quand même une satisfaction d'arriver à faire ça,

malgré les difficultés techniques, humaines, d'organisation, les trois volets que j'ai évoqués. Le deuxième exemple, nous assurons à la France la présidence du Symposium de l'Océan Indien, Indian Ocean Naval Symposium. Donc ça, c'est une présidence que l'on a prise à l'Iran, qui nous l'a confiée, arrivée à échéance, pour deux ans, et que l'on va transmettre

à la fin de cette année à la Thaïlande. On a pu concrètement progresser dans les sujets qui nous préoccupent, la sécurité maritime, the protection of the environment, humanitarian assistance. There are still a lot of things to do, but we have progressed all together, more than twenty countries and still very diverse countries. I mentioned three of them, France, Iran, Thailand. It is really a satisfaction and we continue. And the last example is an exercise in humanitarian assistance that I organized when I was commanding in the Pacific, which is called Marara, it is the name of a flying fish. It was the

first time that we internationalized this exercise. In the Pacific, in Tahiti, in French Polynesia, it has always been a concern, humanitarian assistance in the event of natural disasters, but here it was the first time that we opened it internationally. And despite the distance, Tahiti is 6 hours away from the nearest foreign country, New Zealand or Hawaii, it is 20 hours from Paris, and yet we were 13 nations to train together in the last spring, in the spring of 2022, it was very demanding because we had to convince, we had to move, convince our partners. They had to come here with their forces, with their officers, their units. Here is another example of cooperation. When it is necessary to intervene together,

we are able to do it. We did it, for example, last year when the Tonga, about a year ago, were hit by a tsunami. This state of the South Pacific, France, like other states in particular australia and japan and the united states of america have intervened in this context so here are three very diverse examples to also show the diversity of our actions thank you very much for this passionate discussion admiral unfortunately it is all the time we have today I would like to thank you very much against admiral jean m'assurer and where can we find you online and what are you working on for your channel So you can find me with my name on LinkedIn, after I encourage you to go to the

sites of the Navy, that's my professional profile, but my personal, and the subjects on which we continue to work. Finally, this is the example that I gave, that is to say high-intensity operations, the submarines in the North Atlantic or the group of the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean, which will soon return to the Mediterranean and therefore with all the operations in Europe around and for Ukraine, also in the Indian Ocean the symposium which we always ensure the presidency. I would end with France on the sea, our overseas territories, which remains a strong commitment of our navy, of all our armed forces, but here I am speaking for the navy, in connection with our partners in these different regions. Again, it is a wealth but

but also a duty. There are partners, neighbors, who are less well endowed than us and with whom we must cooperate to help them face the risks and threats which are theirs, which are ours. Good luck for the future, Admiral. Thank you to the listeners for listening again

and see you next time. © transcript Emily Beynon © transcript Emily Beynon