PM Lawrence Wong at the Joint Press Conference with President of France Emmanuel Macron (May 2025)

Your Excellency President Emmanuel Macron
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am very pleased to welcome President Macron to Singapore. He generously hosted me when I visited Paris last year and I am happy for the opportunity to reciprocate his hospitality here in Singapore. We had a visit to Lau Pa Sat last night to experience Singapore’s hawker culture and local food scene. We had good discussions over dinner yesterday, and again at our meeting this morning.

President Macron’s State Visit is a timely one. It comes as we mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between France and Singapore. France was among the first countries to recognise Singapore’s independence in 1965. We remember this gesture of solidarity and we thank you for it.

Our ties have grown from strength to strength since then.

France was the first European country with whom Singapore established a Strategic Partnership in 2012.

This Partnership laid the foundation for our close cooperation across many areas in defence, trade, cybersecurity, education, research and culture.

In today’s uncertain world, it is even more important for like-minded countries like France and Singapore to work together.

That is why President Macron and I have agreed to upgrade bilateral ties to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership or CSP.

This will deepen our cooperation in existing sectors, and expand our collaboration in new areas like decarbonisation, digitalisation, and AI (Artificial Intelligence).

This will be Singapore’s first Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with a European country.

It reflects the high level of trust between our two countries, and the potential for us to achieve even more together.

The number and range of agreements we witnessed just now reflects the breadth of our CSP. Let me to just highlight a few key themes.

First on Defence, that has always been a pillar of our relationship.

We are grateful to France for hosting an RSAF training squadron at Cazaux Airbase for over 25 years.

We are also happy to support French military deployments in the Asia-Pacific, including port calls by French naval vessels.

Under the new partnership, we will enhance cooperation in other areas, including deployments, defence technology, and critical and emerging technologies. We will also reinforce security cooperation, including by establishing a senior officials’ dialogue.

Second in the economy, especially in trade and investment, where we have very strong ties.

Under the CSP, we will do even more to boost economic cooperation and increase connectivity, such as by leveraging on the France-Singapore Digital and Green Partnership (DGP) and our two new agreements on aviation and maritime transport.

Third, our cooperation in emerging and frontier technologies. This has been expanding over the years and we have new areas like AI, cybersecurity, and quantum.

We will deepen cooperation in the digital domain.

We will continue to expand research collaboration through our Joint Committee on Science and Innovation.

Fourth, in sustainability and energy, we already have robust exchanges, but we will build on that to do more.

Our two new agreements on civil nuclear energy cooperation will help Singapore to tap on French expertise in this field, as we explore the possibility for civilian nuclear energy in Singapore.

Finally, people-to-people exchanges are another important part of our relationship. The French presence in Singapore is growing, and likewise the Singapore presence in France. Our cultural ties are growing too. We hope to build on these robust linkages to do more together.

Under the CSP, we will strengthen our collaboration between our Institutes of Higher Learning, deepen cooperation in technical and vocational training, and promote more cooperation in the arts and culture.

Besides closer bilateral ties, both France and Singapore will also work closely to strengthen multilateralism and the rules-based international order.

President Macron and I had good discussions on how we can do so.

France is a longstanding partner of ASEAN, and we welcome its strong interest to step up engagement of our region.

We also agreed that the CPTPP and the EU can do more together, to boost two-way trade and investment links, and to reinforce the principles of our rules-based trading system.

I thank President Macron for the excellent discussions over the past two days. He is a partner and a friend of Singapore, and we deeply value his commitment to advancing the Singapore-France relationship.

I look forward to working with him and his team to bring our bilateral ties to greater heights in the coming days.