In the end, Emmanuel Macron used big words to underscore France’s security ambitions in the Indo-Pacific. At the closing conference with Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape last Friday, Macron stressed that France did not want to get into „power games.“ „Our objective is not at all to compete with China or the US.“ Speaking in Vanuatu the day before, he had warned of „new imperialisms“ in the Pacific. On other occasions, he and Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu emphasized that France considers itself a balancing force in the Indo-Pacific.