By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk
Southern Cross, a French-hosted regional military exercise, is moving to Wallis and Futuna Islands this year.
The exercise, which includes participating regional armed and law enforcement forces from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Tonga every two years, is scheduled to take place April 22-May 3.
Since its inception in 2002, the war games have traditionally been hosted in New Caledonia.
However, New Caledonia was the scene last year of serious riots, causing 14 deaths, hundreds injured, and an estimated cost of 2.2 billion euros (NZ$4.2 billion)
Southern Cross focuses on the notion of “interoperability” between regional forces, with a joint multinational command following a predefined but realistic scenario, usually in a fictitious island state affected by a natural disaster and/or political unrest.
This is the first time the regional French exercise will be hosted on Wallis Island, in the French Pacific territory of Wallis and Futuna, near Fiji and Samoa.
Earlier this month (March 3-5), the Nouméa-based French Armed Forces in New Caledonia (FANC) hosted a “Final Coordination Conference” (FCC) with its regional counterparts after a series of on-site reconnaissance visits to Wallis and Futuna Islands ahead of the Southern Cross 2025 manoeuvres.
Humanitarian, disaster relief
FANC also confirmed this year, again in Wallis-and-Futuna, the exercise scenario would mainly focus on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) and that it would involve, apart from the French forces, the deployment of some 19 other participating countries, with an estimated 2000 personnel, including 600 regional.
Last week, still in preparation mode, a group of FANC officers travelled again to Wallis for three days to finalise preparations ahead of the exercise.
In an interview with public broadcaster Wallis and Futuna la 1ère, FANC inter-army chief-of-staff Colonel Frédéric Puchois said the group of officers met local chiefly and royal authorities, as well as the Speaker of the local territorial assembly.
In 2023, the previous Southern Cross exercise held in New Caledonia involved the participation of about 18 regional countries.
“It’s all about activating and practising quick and efficient scenarios to respond mainly to a large-scale natural disaster,” Colonel Puchois said.
“Southern Cross until now took place in New Caledonia, but it was decided for 2025 to choose Wallis and Futuna to work specifically on long-distance projection.
“So, the Americans will position some of their forces in Pago-Pago in American Samoa to test their capacity to project forces from a rear base located 2000 kms away [from Wallis].
“And for the French part, the rear base will be New Caledonia,” he added.
Port Vila earthquake
He said one of the latest real-life illustrations of this kind of deployment was the recent relief operation from Nouméa following Port Vila’s devastating earthquake in mid-December 2024.
“We brought essential relief supplies, in coordination with NGOs like the Red Cross. And during Southern Cross 2025, we will again work with them and other NGOs”.
However, Colonel Puchois said not all personnel would be deployed at the same time.
“We will project small groups at a time. There will be several phases,” he said.
“First to secure the airport to ensure it is fit for landing of large aircraft. This could involve parachute personnel and supplies.
“Then assistance to the population, involving other components such as civil security, fire brigades, gendarmes. It would conclude with evacuating people in need of further assistance.
“So we won’t project all of the 2000 participants at the same time, but groups of 250 to 300 personnel”.
Cooperation with Vanuatu Mobile Force
FANC Commander General Yann Latil was in Vanuatu two weeks ago, where he held meetings with Vanuatu Mobile Forces (VMF) Commander Colonel Ben Nicholson and Vanuatu Internal Affairs minister Andrew Napuat to discuss cooperation, as well as handling and maintenance of the French-supplied FAMAS rifles.
For two weeks, two FANC instructors were in Port Vila to train a group of about 15 VMF on handling and maintenance of the FAMAS used by the island state’s paramilitary force.
The VMF were also handed over more ammunition for the standard issue FAMAS (the French equivalent of the US-issued M-16).
During his visit, General Latil also held talks with Vanuatu Internal Affairs Minister Andrew Napuat, who is in charge of the VMF and police.
FANC and Vanuatu security forces are “working on a regular basis”, Vanuatu-based French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer said.
The three-star general (equivalent of a lieutenant-general) flew back to Nouméa about 500 km away on March 8.
French vessel on fishing policing mission
At the same time, still in Vanuatu, Nouméa-based overseas support and assistance vessel (BSAOM) the D’Entrecasteaux and its crew were on a courtesy call in Luganville (Espiritu Santo island, North Vanuatu) for three days.
After hosting local officials and school students for visits, the patrol boat embarked on a surveillance policing mission in high seas off the archipelago.
One ni-Vanuatu officer also joined the French crew inspecting foreign fishing vessels and checking if they comply with current regulations under the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA).
On a regular basis, similar monitoring operations are also carried out by navies from other regional countries such as Australia and New Zealand in order to assist neighbouring Pacific States in protecting their respective Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) from what is usually termed Illegal Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing from foreign vessels.
Last month, the D’Entrecasteaux was engaged in a series of naval exercises off Papua New Guinea.
Further north in the Pacific, French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and its strike group wrapped up an unprecedented two-month deployment in a series of multinational exercises with Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam), where “one third of the world’s maritime trade transits every day”.
This included its own Exercises Clémenceau25 and La Pérouse (with eight neighbouring forces), but also interoperability-focused manoeuvres with the US and Japan (Pacific Steller).
“The deployment of this military capacity underlines France’s attachment to maritime and aerial freedom of action and movement on all seas and oceans of the world”, the Tahiti-based Pacific Maritime Command (ALPACI) said this week in a release.
US Navy in Western Pacific activity
Also in western Pacific waters, the US Navy’s activity has been intense over the past few weeks, and continues.
The Virginia-class fast-attack submarine USS Vermont (SSN 792) returned on 18 March to Joint Base Pearl Harbour-Hickam, following a seven-month deployment, the submarine’s first deployment to the Western Pacific, the US Third Fleet command stated.
On Friday, the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) Carrier Strike Group (NIMCSG) left Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington, for a regularly scheduled deployment to the Western Pacific.
The US Third Fleet command said the strike group’s deployment will focus on “demonstrating the US Navy’s unwavering commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific in which all nations are secure in their sovereignty and free from coercion”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
