Published on 02/03/2021 at 5:00 p.m.
–
France is expanding … into the Indian Ocean. After the publication of two decrees in the Official Journal, our national submarine maritime domain was officially extended by 150,000 km2 in the Indian Ocean, reports the General Secretariat of the Sea. The Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, a specialized body of Nations United, announced in June 2020 that it was authorizing France to extend its continental shelf. The publication, in January in the OJ, of two decrees fixing the outer limits of the continental shelf “brings into French law the extension of the continental shelf off the islands of Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, and Reunion”, a specified Wednesday the General Secretariat of the Sea.
The French maritime domain will extend off Reunion Island, by 58,121 km2, and off the islands of Saint-Paul and Amsterdam, in the TAAF, by 93,202 km2, or in total the equivalent of more than a quarter of the surface of the Hexagon. However, France’s rights over these zones are exercised only on the soil and the seabed and not on the water column, which remains in the international domain. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982), known as Montego Bay, gives coastal countries in these areas sovereign rights for the exploration and exploitation of natural resources of the soil and subsoil (hydrocarbons , minerals, metals or biological resources).
>> To read also – Why the independence of New Caledonia would make France lose very big
“The exploitation of these underwater spaces is not on the agenda”, however assured in June the Secretary General of the Sea in a press release. But this allows France “to preserve its rights for the future in vast underwater spaces, which implies the possibility of ensuring their protection if exploitation is not desired”. The continental shelf of France is thus brought to an area of 730,000 km2, which is added to the 10.2 million km2 of water under French sovereignty (internal waters and territorial sea) or under jurisdiction (exclusive economic zone, EEZ) of France. .
In 2015, four decrees formalized a first extension of 579,000 km2 of the French continental shelf off Martinique, the West Indies, Guyana, New Caledonia and the Kerguelen Islands. France can still claim about 500,000 km2 of continental shelf, especially around the archipelago of Crozet, Wallis and Futuna, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, south-eastern New Caledonia and French Polynesia .
>> To read also – Scandium, yttrium … These French rare earths which are worth gold!
–
