L

ike President Nicolas Sarkozy, French Ambassador to Indonesia Philippe Zeller - an adept career-diplomat - is an active and dynamic person. In less than one year he has proved his worth not only as the French Ambassador to Indonesia, but also as envoy of the EU's French presidency (July to December 2008). He was also recently appointed concurrently as the French envoy to ASEAN.

During the past 11 months there has been great activity in French relations with Indonesia.

President Sarkozy and his Indonesian counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono have met three times in this period, and kept in contact via telephone. Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla visited France last year. Numerous groups of businesspeople, lawmakers, officials, artists, religious leaders and academicians have also exchanged visits in recent months.

Last year, bilateral trade reached US$2.62 billion, a significant jump from $2.24 billion in 2007. More and more French companies are showing interest in Indonesia.

With the re-election of President Yudhoyono, the relations between France and Indonesia are set to scale new heights.

In order to learn more about the growing ties between France and Indonesia, The Jakarta Post's Veeramalla Anjaiah recently talked to Zeller. The following is an excerpt from the interview.

Question: What is the present state of bilateral relations, especially politically?

Answer: Our bilateral relations are very good. If we refer to the political field, there were some developments on the strictly bilateral relationship thanks to visits to France made by Indonesian ministers or members of the House of Representatives. I would preferably underline the numerous opportunities for Indonesian and French authorities to work together in multilateral frames. Indonesia was, till last December, a member of the UN Security Council; France chaired the European Union (EU) during the second semester of 2008.

Both countries belong to the G20 "club", whose members gathered many times due to the economic crisis, and also of the Asia-Euope Meeting (ASEM).

Both countries sent troops to Lebanon under the UN flag and worked together to prepare the next steps of the Bali road map: all these international events created opportunities for a common appreciation and evaluation of what is at stake in our world and what can be done when you cross the views of partners playing, each in its proper region, a deciding role.

Take the example of the G20: it allowed President Yudhoyono and President Sarkozy to meet three times in a year; I'm convinced it triggered a new phase in our bilateral relations, with the hope there will be further steps. I will add that we are now preparing the visits of members of the French Parliament to Indonesia: an Indonesian-French friendship committee has recently been created by the French Senate.

What about in the economic field?

The international crisis is a reality and we recently noticed not really a slump, but at least a decrease in bilateral trade, although it reached its highest level in 2008, with 2 billion Euros (US$2.62 billion). Some French companies, which used to export to the Indonesian market, faced difficulties they didn't experience previously and referred to our embassy and, through us, to the European Commission, to ask for consultations with our Indonesian partners concerning the implementation of international trade rules.

However, I want to praise the dynamism of the 110 French companies, subsidiaries and branches that have invested in Indonesia and are drafting new projects, for instance in the oil and gas, mining, mechanical engineering, food and production of drinkable water, retail services, banking, information technology, public works and supplies, tourism services and craft production. Over the last year, I visited many of them and noticed not only the number of jobs they have directly created (about 40.000) or generated through their activities, but also the skills these workers acquire. In this framework, I want to underline the recent initiative of both the KADIN *Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry* and the Indonesian-French Chamber of Commerce and Industry *IFCCI* who work together to encourage new partnerships and new flows of business exchanges between the two countries.

What has happened in the cultural field over the past 12 months?

We have so many activities in the cultural field. Recently, some Indonesian artists gave traditional art performances and displayed traditional crafts in France. For example, a theater in Paris hosted a prestigious wayang kulit *leather shadow puppet show*: the hall was full for three days running. And dancers from Papua will perform during the next Auvergne Summer Festival, in central France.

Here in Indonesia we are proud to maintain an active French network with four cultural centers *in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Bandung and Surabaya* and seven Alliances Fran*aises and to screen the most recent French films every year. We also hold a festival with many different cultural performances, including the famous "Printemps fran*ais". Among the many other events, may I mention the work done by a French pantomime, who spent a few months in Jakarta and Yogyakarta performing and holding fascinating workshops with children and students, some of whom were handicapped but proved to be able to share their capacities in this non-verbal but intercultural way of expression.

I take this opportunity to recall the memory of the painter Salim, who hailed from Sumatra and who passed away last October in Paris at the age of 100 years: he was an outstanding mediator between our two cultures.

What are your plans for strengthening bilateral relations and what will be the future of these relations in the next five years?

What's probably the most at stake for a country like France in its relation with Indonesia is to study and understand the key factors of transformation of such a great and promising emerging nation: democracy, economic planning and development, high standards of education, social improvement, environmental management and a commitment to active diplomacy. It opens a lot of broad fields of common work and a clear perspective of mutual benefit if we place this common work in the framework of ASEAN and the European Union.

Let us take just three examples.

We are convinced that cooperation between universities can be widely broadened: the Minister for Education and I signed an agreement a few weeks ago to develop this cooperation at the masters and doctoral levels with funding from each part. It will open new possibilities for hosting students, training professors and supporting joint research activities.

Second example: Our cooperation on environmental policies. To support the Indonesian national climate change program, the Agence Fran*aise de D*veloppement (AFD) has just approved a $300 million soft loan to the government to sustain Indonesian driven policy reform for dealing with climate change issues, tough targets stated in the form of a "policy matrix" which covers forestry, energy, agriculture, water and cross-sectoral issues. Last year, the AFD granted a $200 million loan, co-financing by Japan. The AFD is also directly targeting technical assistance to ease the implementation of specific actions, for instance on the small-scale and green carbon market, which could be presented as examples during the next multilateral climate change negotiations.

Thirdly, we intend to intensify our political dialogue, and to screen the areas where mutual benefit could be reached by exchanging views on regional and international evolutions, as it was the case on Gaza at the beginning of this year when the two Presidents talked on the phone to exchange their views. This dialogue will also include strategic and military cooperation.