<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><b>President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged an end to "confrontation" as he outlined his vision for France's engagement with the Asia-Pacific region.</b></span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Macron is attending the 21-strong Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Bangkok as he seeks to relaunch France's strategy for the region in the face of growing US-China competition.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">France wants to play a stabilising role in the region to avert confrontation, the French president told a gathering of business leaders on the sidelines of the summit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We don't believe in hegemony, we don't believe in confrontation, we believe in stability," Macron said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said regional powers including France -- which has overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, including Reunion, New Caledonia and French Polynesia -- should play a role.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We are in the jungle and we have two big elephants, trying to become more</div><div style="text-align: justify;">and more nervous," Macron said in his speech, which he gave in English.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If they become very nervous and start war it will be a big problem for the rest of the jungle. You need cooperation of a lot of other animals: tigers, monkeys, and so on."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Macron said the international community was facing overlapping crises, from climate change to economic turmoil, and a coordinated response was needed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Our Indo-Pacific strategy is how to provide dynamic balance in this environment," he said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"How to provide precisely a sort of stability and equilibrium which could not be the hegemony of one of those, could not be the confrontation of the two major powers."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Russia's war in Ukraine, which he identified as a major source of global instability, he said all countries in Asia and elsewhere needed to recognise their duty to act.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">France was working to build "an increasing consensus in order to say this war is also your problem because it will create a lot of destabilisation", Macron said. BSS</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>