Foreign Relations of France - Oceania

In August 2009, Nicolas Sarkozy became the first serving French leader to visit Australia. The Courier Mail reported that "serious bilateral issues" for Sarkozy and Kevin Rudd to discuss included "the war in Afghanistan and global warming".

Relations between the France| and the Fiji are currently strained, due to France's condemnation of the coup d'état in Fiji in December 2006. Previously, Franco-Fiji bilateral relations had primarily be centred on military cooperation, with France assisting Fiji in surveiling its maritime zone, and on development aid. French military assistance was suspended after the coup. French aid to Fiji includes the providing of equipment for poor and isolated areas, and assistance in the development of renewable energy. France also provides Fiji with translations into English of French scientific documents pertaining to the Pacific area. France promotes French culture and the French language in Fiji through the presence of the Alliance Française and by encouraging the teaching of French in schools and at the University of the South Pacific. The French embassy in Suva is accredited to Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu.

The two countries maintain official diplomatic relations, but no diplomatic presence on each other's territory; the French embassy in Suva is accredited to Kiribati.

In 1995, Nauru broke off relations diplomatic relations with France to protest French nuclear testing in the Pacific. Relations were resumed in 1997. Nauruan President Ludwig Scotty paid a State visit to Paris in June 2006, when he attended a France-Oceania multilateral summit.

Relations between France and New Zealand have been rocky at the best of times, but more recently become much closer. Bilateral relations have been good since World War I and World War II, with both countries working extremely closely during either conflicts, but the relationship was severely jeopardised by the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland on 10 July 1985 by French Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) agents. New Zealand was put under fierce economic strain by France following the attack with French Government demanding the agents who carried out the attack to be released by the New Zealand government. Since then there has been some animosity among New Zealanders towards the French, but since the 20th anniversary of the bombing in 2005, there were signs that New Zealand had begun to warm to the French. There has been speculation that this acceptance of the French by the New Zealand people has a lot to do with the historic rivalry between both countries' Rugby teams.

Relations between the French Republic and the Independent State of Papua New Guinea are limited but cordial. Papua New Guinea is a member of the United Nations' Special Committee on Decolonization. The French government has noted what it calls Port Moresby's "moderate" attitude on the issue of the decolonisation of New Caledonia - which, like Papua New Guinea, is located in Melanesia. The French National Assembly maintains a Friendship Group with Papua New Guinea.

Vanuatu, then known as the New Hebrides, was a Franco-British Condominium from 1906 to 1980, and maintained formal relations with both of its former colonial masters after gaining independence. Franco–ni-Vanuatu relations were rocked by a series of crises in the 1980s, and broke down completely on several occasions, with Vanuatu expelling the French ambassador in 1981, in 1984 and in 1987. Relations improved from the 1990s onwards, and, today, France provides development aid to Vanuatu. The two countries also share amicable economic and cultural relations; both are members of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.