French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday at the closing of a summit on poles and glaciers in Paris the construction of a French ship as part of a polar research effort in which France will invest one billion euros “until 2030.”
Based between Noumea, in New Caledonia, and Hobart, in Australia, this so-called “ice” ship, capable of navigating the ice that clutters the polar seas and can reach several meters thick, will be shared between the Western Pacific and Antarctica. . It will be named after former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, who was the first French ambassador to the Poles, the French president said.
Renovation of the Franco-Italian Concordia station
He stated that between now and 2030 France will invest one billion euros in polar research, without going into details. In particular, it will finance two major initiatives at the two poles: the Polar Pod of explorer Jean-Louis Étienne in the Southern Ocean and the Arctic Station supported by the Tara Foundation.
France will rebuild its Dumont d’Urville station on the Antarctic Peninsula from 2026 and will work on the renovation of the Franco-Italian Concordia station, maintaining the best environmental standards, said the Head of State, adding that Paris will participate in close collaboration with its European partners in a major research project in East Antarctica, where knowledge is still limited.
“Collapse” of frozen surfaces
The meeting that has been held since Wednesday at the National Museum of Natural History in the French capital, within the framework of the ONE Planet summits organized by Emmanuel Macron in recent years, led to a “call from Paris for the poles and glaciers “which, according to the French president, already brings together “about thirty signatory States.”
Among them, several European countries, but also India, Singapore, South Korea… Or even Tuvalu and Australia, which has just offered climate asylum to the 11,000 citizens of this small group of Pacific islands eaten away by the rising level of the sea. water and threatened with extinction. .
Faced with the “collapse” of the planet’s frozen surfaces, an “unprecedented” and “civilizational” challenge for humanity, Emmanuel Macron advocated for “an unprecedented level of cooperation” despite the “resurgence of geopolitical tensions.”
“Despite all these tensions, it is clear that we must act, make the poles and glaciers privileged spaces for peace and scientific and environmental cooperation,” advocated the French president.
Source: BFM TV
