France to PH: you don’t need to only have one ally

French Navy Commander Frédéric Daumas, commanding officer of the visiting Prairial – a French multi-purpose frigate, said It will be a good idea to have procurements from other countries, not just from the United States. “It’s not to say that they are not our best ally, because they are the best ally of everybody. But you don’t need to have only one ally, and you don’t need to put all your eggs in the same basket.”

“I think you already have a lot of American equipment. Most of your ships are coming from the American Navy, second-hand ships. I think it is good to have different ways of working, different procedures, different organizations, and if you have only one major partner, probably you deprive yourself of having a variety of points of view, a variety of partnerships,” Daumas added.

Daumas said France is upholding the common goal of protecting freedom of navigation in the Pacific. “We want to reaffirm that we apply the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and that with all our partners, we have a common understanding on what needs to be done.”