Emmanuel Macron turns on French charm for Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull

Emmanuel Macron offered strategic support to the PM, while praising ‘delicious wife Lucy’ during a charm offensive.

French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to work with Australia to establish a new strategic “axis” in the Indo-Pacific theatre which would be a “balance” to the growth of China and a force for a rules-based order in the region.

Mr Macron made the pledge at a press conference after meeting Malcolm Turnbull at Kirribilli House in Sydney, where he thanked the Prime Minister and “your delicious wife” Lucy for “a very warm welcome” in Australia.

In French, the word “deliceuse” in referring to a woman would usually mean “delightful”.​

Both leaders hailed a new strategic partnership between the two countries, and warned China against disrupting the long and peaceful period of development in the region which had let its people grow out of poverty and into prosperity.

“We welcome the economic rise of China,” Mr Turnbull said, describing it as “unprecedented in scale and pace.”

“That economic rise, that growth has been enabled and made possible by a rules-based order in our region,” he said.

Mr Macron said it was necessary to “introduce some necessary balances in the region.”

“It is important to not have any hegemony,” he told journalists at Kirribilli House, the Prime Minister’s official residence in Sydney.

Mr Macron at the Sydney Opera House with Lucy Turnbull during a reception this week. Picture: AFP

A new strategic partnership between Australia and France, which Mr Macron stressed remained a major Indo-Pacific power with more than a million citizens in its colonies in the region and 8000 military personnel, would be a positive initiative, he said.

“We do want to favour free movement in the Asia Pacific region,” Mr Macron said.

“I believe we have one shared goal, that is to place (a rules based order) at the heart of a new axis in the Pacific.”

“We have territories,” Mr Macron said of French colonies in the region.

“It’s about making sure the presence of France in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean is fully acknowledged.”

Mr Macron said that while both countries favoured free trade and wanted to advance talks towards a free-trade agreement between Australia and the European Union, France would look after its interests.

He said these interests included agriculture and the economy of the French territory New Caledonia, but said these matters had been discussed constructively with Mr Turnbull.

The French leader appears to throw a wink at Mr Turnbull. Picture: AFP