International organizations - France’s reelection to the Council of the International Maritime Organization (6 December 2023)

France was reelected to the Council of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) for the 2023-2025 term at the Assembly’s 33rd session, held in London from November 27 to December 6. We thank the 145 states that put their trust in us. Our country is proud to have served on the Council, the IMO’s executive body, since its establishment, and we are honored by the recognition of our role as a maritime power.

Driven by the conviction that the oceans are a common good, France will maintain its commitment to protect marine ecosystems as well as maritime safety and security.

It is in this spirit that in 2025, France will host the next UN Ocean Conference in Nice, which it will co-chair with Costa Rica. This important gathering will provide an opportunity for France to continue its efforts to ensure safe, clean, sustainable, decarbonized maritime spaces. Our priorities include the prevention of ship-source pollutants and the international maritime sector’s achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050, in accordance with the strategy adopted by the IMO in July 2022. In this regard, France announced a new €100,000 contribution to the IMO trust fund to facilitate the participation of developing countries in IMO meetings relating to the decarbonization of maritime transport. The commitments by public and private actors to decarbonize maritime transport announced on the sidelines of the COP28 are an important step toward that goal.