Reuters
France and Japan are expediting a reciprocal troop access deal, strengthening defense cooperation amid rising maritime tensions and the war in Ukraine, a Japanese government official said.
The G7 allies have held numerous joint military exercises in recent years — both bilaterally and as part of a wider group. Paris has been pushing for more than a year to begin talks on a reciprocal access agreement (RAA).
RAAs create frameworks to facilitate military cooperation, such as making the entry of foreign personnel and equipment easier for the visiting force.
“We are confident that we will be able to conclude negotiations on a reciprocal access agreement quite rapidly, so we can have a new legal basis for further cooperation between our armed forces,” French Ambassador Philippe Setton told The Japan Times newspaper.
In December 2023, Japan announced its biggest defense buildup since World War II. It has signed RAAs with Australia and the United Kingdom and is negotiating a third with the Philippines.
Tokyo, which spent about two years negotiating an RAA with Australia and one year negotiating one with Britain, hosts the biggest concentration of U.S. forces abroad.
France has overseas territories in the Indo-Pacific and stations armed forces in the region, where it has sought to increase its presence.
It wants to underscore how it can play a bigger role in Japan’s defense industry, as it has in the civilian nuclear power sector, as Tokyo adopts a more muscular defense policy in the region.