France in the regional organizations of the Pacific
France is a founding member of the Pacific Community and the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). While not a member of the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), it holds “Dialogue Partner” status while two of its territories (New Caledonia and French Polynesia) have been full members since 2016. Wallis and Futuna is an associate member.
The Pacific Community
The organization is the largest in the Pacific region in terms of staff (620 officials) and budget (€82 million in 2021). Its headquarters is in Nouméa, in New Caledonia. It has regional presence in Suva (Fiji), a branch in Pohnpei (Federated States of Micronesia) and an office in Port Vila (Vanuatu).
The Pacific Community has an exclusively technical mandate, its purpose being to provide support to the development policies of the States and territories of Oceania. It has public health, education and human rights programmes, and also environmental sustainability and climate change programmes.
France is the second-largest contributor to the Pacific Community’s budget with €2.4 million (€300,000 of which is a voluntary contribution) donated in 2023.
In November 2022, for the organization’s 75th anniversary, France was represented at the Ministerial Conference by the Minister of State for Development, Chrysoula Zacharapoulou.
The Pacific Community is an important partner for the implementation of our regional action in the Pacific. It was the main channel through which the French response to the health crisis in the Pacific was implemented, with a subsidy of €2 million for its Pacific Public Health Surveillance Network. The Pacific Community is also playing an increasingly important role in the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) architecture.
Firstly, with its Pacific Islands Emergency Management Alliance » (PIEMA) initiative, the goal of which is to strengthen the capacities and interoperability of the national authorities in natural disaster management offices (NDMOs) in the South Pacific, within which France seeks to strengthen its presence.
Secondly, the Pacific Community should be the chosen partner to implement the project to enhance pre-positioned stocks in the Pacific island States (Pacific Humanitarian Warehousing Program, the total budget of which is estimated at €66 million) and to which France is expected to contribute €8 million over 8 years.
Lastly, in the same vein as the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), the Pacific Community is an implementation partner of the KIWA Initiative, on climate change adaptation and the preservation of biodiversity in the Pacific, led by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD). It directs one of its biggest projects, “An organic learning farm network to build the climate resilience of smallholder producers in the Pacific”, which has a budget of €4.6 million and operates in Fiji, Nauru, Tonga and the Solomon Islands.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)
SPREP has 120 staff members, based at SPREP’s headquarters in Apia, Samoa. It has four divisions: climate change resilience, biodiversity conservation, waste management and pollution control, and environmental governance.
France is a full member of SPREP, to which it was the leading State contributor in 2022 to its programmes with €1.6 million contributed. The European Union was the leading contributor with €13.8 million. During his trip around the Pacific region in July 2023, President Macron announced the opening of an Embassy in Samoa, in Apia, in order to develop our bilateral relationship, facilitate the integration of French Polynesia into its neighbourhood and deepen our cooperation with SPREP. The Embassy was opened in February 2025.
SPREP is an implementation partner of the KIWA Initiative for biodiversity, the climate and resilience in the Pacific.
In 2023, France was represented at the 31st SPREP Meeting of Officials by the Minister’s Special Envoy for the strengthening of the French presence in the Pacific. On that occasion, France highlighted its action to conserve biodiversity through the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, the signing and ratification of the treaty to protect marine resources and biodiversity in the world’s oceans (BBNJ), the fight against plastic pollution and preparations ahead of the Third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3). These priorities were all mentioned in the Report of the 31st SPREP Meeting of Officials in September 2023.
Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)
The PIF is first and foremost a forum for discussion between the Heads of States and Governments of the Pacific, defining regional priorities for action. The work of the organization is structured around its annual Summit, organized by the country that holds the rotating presidency. The last Summit took place between 26 and 30 August 2024 in Nuku’alofa, under the Tongan presidency. The decisions made at the annual PIF Summits are implemented by the “technical” organizations such as the Pacific Community and SPREP.
For partners of the Pacific, the PIF is the main forum for political discussions. France is committed to its status as a “dialogue partner” which allows it to discuss the regional priorities for action, written into the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent.
The Forum Secretariat of the PIF is based in Suva, and has a staff of 140 people and a budget of €3 million. In 2024, the PIF had 18 full members: the 16 independent States of Oceania, along with French Polynesia and New Caledonia. There are also three associate members (Tokelau and Wallis and Futuna since 2018) and four observer members (American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam and Timor-Leste).
In 2016, New Caledonia and French Polynesia joined the PIF as full members, with the support of the French government, to foster their regional integration.
Since 1989, France has been a member of the PIF Forum Dialogue Partners, who meet annually at the end of the Summit. This format of discussion brings together the full Forum members and some twenty other States that wish to deepen their cooperation with the members. France was represented 10 times at ministerial level since 1995 with the latest participation by the Minister of State for the Sea, Hervé Berville, in November 2023. He recalled the French desire to renew engagement in the Pacific, as announced by President Macron during his trip to the region in July 2023.
When she travelled to the PIF headquarters in Fiji in July 2023, then Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Catherine Colonna had reaffirmed France’s wish to develop regional cooperation with the Forum, particularly in the fields of climate change, biodiversity and the oceans.
France also seeks to develop its cooperation with the PIF on the topic of maritime security and knowledge of the maritime domain (promoting the expansion of the CRIMARIO programme to include the Pacific) and intensify operational cooperation of fisheries enforcement conducted by the French Navy for the Forum Fisheries Agency, with the QUAD Pacific partners (Australia, New Zealand and the United States).
Updated: June 2025