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rench President Emmanuel Macron did not forget Asia when he announced his foreign policy priorities, a French lawmaker said recently.

“When he announced his north to south approach from France and Europe down to Africa, I was worried that he was forgetting Asia, but when he visited China I knew he would be visiting other countries in Asia,” said Anne Genetet, a member of the French National Assembly.

Speaking on the sidelines of a discussion on Thursday, Genetet said there were many possibilities of cooperation between the two countries including building peace.

“And when you look into Asia just one thing comes into my mind too. When you look into the [South] China Sea, it is slowly becoming the Sea of China. Maybe France and Indonesia can do something together to protect the [South] China Sea,” she added.

Meanwhile, French Ambassador to Indonesia Jean-Charles Berthonnet said among the many things the two countries cooperated on were climate change, renewable energy and counter-terrorism but “at the end of the day the way to implement all of these good ideas is through concrete cooperation on the ground.”

He said Indonesia and France would have a high-level meeting on the fight against the financing of terrorism in Paris at the end of April.

He said France was also looking for cooperation in energy, infrastructure and transport.