Australia, March 28 -- By Nic Maclellan
Both the Australian Labor Party and Coalition have expressed support for France to remain as a Pacific power, seeing the French Republic as a stable, democratic, Western ally at a time of growing Chinese influence in the Pacific Islands.
But this general silence in Australian politics about the rights of colonised people in France's Pacific dependencies shouldn't extend to Australia's international relations think tanks. Recent analysis of the strategic partnership between France and Australia have said little or nothing about local's rights (a report from the Lowy Institute was one such example, as was another from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute). The recent article by Alexandre Dayant (...