Forget about the white sand beaches and the coconut of certain tricolor territories abroad. Far from the warm and tropical images of the Antilles or the meeting, France has radically different overseas territories. These are French and Antarctic French lands (TAAF) whose community celebrated its 70th anniversary on Wednesday.
The TAAF brings together a set of overseas territories in the south of the Indian Ocean. They are composed of several districts: the Crozet archipelago, the Kerguelen Islands, the Saint-Paul Islands, the dispersed islands and the Adélie Earth (the French part of Antarctica).
These southern lands have the distinction of being under the authority of an administrator and a prefect, which guarantee their safety and guarantee the application of laws that govern the community. Among these laws, the prohibition of the agreement. In addition to a few hundred scientists and soldiers who carry out missions of several months, no population has been established in the area in the area.
Fishing as an engine
In addition to the investigation and army missions, the southern economic fabric takes place in a unique way: not having employees or companies established in the region, the South Economics is managed from the meeting from the meeting. It is mainly structured around fishery resources, southern fishing that represents 10% of the French fishing sector. If this industry weighs both nationally, it is thanks to its exclusive economic zone (ZEE) of 2,300,000 km² of exploitable maritime space or 20% of the 10,186,624 km² of the French ZEE.
Therefore, fishing is a mastodon, but a mastodon wants to be durable: the fishery of the southern waters, grouped under the name of “South Fishing”, is certified by the MSC label. The latter, although controversial, to the ambition to guarantee the renewal of fish stock and respect for ecosystems.
In this region, we fish mainly the southern links, described as “white gold” by experts. An article published on La Cruz reports that in 2023, almost a third of these fish were captured under the French pavilion. The Southern Links is a very popular species of Americans, which is sold between $ 80 and 100 kilo in US supermarkets.
Fishing resources, but not only
In addition to the seafood, other resources are full of depths of the south. Thanks to the TAAF, France has one of the largest submarine territories in the world, which guarantees access to all the resources it contains: the basement of the dispersed islands, which are between Madagascar and Mozambique, abounds with hydrocarbons. As for the other southern islands, the rare estimates that exist suggest that their basement would be equipped with nickel and cobalt.
However, these resources were not exploited: in December 2020, the Government definitely ended maritime oil drilling in France. As for minerals, they are unusable at the moment: their extraction would cost too much and could have strong consequences on ecosystems.
The TAAF also obtains income from more modest sources, such as Anchorage Tax, paid by the ships that stop in its waters, the sponsorship of certain foundations, where the edition and sale of unique stamps. Until 2020, the Taaf community also organized tourist trips aboard Marion Dufresne, one of the ships that ensures the logistics chain in the TAAF. But the Covvi-19 Pandemia was suitable for this type of expedition.
A territory in the heart of global geopolitics
Beyond exploitable fish or oil fish banks, TAAF and its latitudes also have strategic importance. These territories, rich in biodiversity, constitute a unique laboratory to observe and understand climate change, through sixty scientific projects carried out by the French polar institute. France has also created one of the largest protected marine areas (672,000 km²), recognized as Unesco World Heritage since 2019.
In the international scene, the TAAF ZEE allows France to play a leadership role in discussions on maritime security and oceanic governance. Not to mention that with tensions in the Middle East, part of maritime traffic in the Red Sea has moved to the Indian Ocean. So much so that today, almost 30% of container flows between Asia and Europe pass through the Mozambique Canal, near the scattered islands.
The strategic nature of the island’s territories is well understood by the regional actors: since the independence of the ancient French colonies of the Indian Ocean, Madagascar and Mauricio, regularly claim the sovereignty of the islands of the style.
Source: BFM TV
