Jacques Serais // photo credit: Ludovic MARIN / AFP
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2:36 p.m., May 21, 2023
The President of the Republic continues to travel and has already flown to a new destination after the G7 in Hiroshima. Mongolia welcomes this Sunday Emmanuel Macron in the capital of Ulaanbaatar. The East Asian country could in particular allow France to diversify its energy supplies.
Emmanuel Macron becomes the first president to set foot in Mongolia in office. The East Asian country receives the President of the Republic in the capital Ulaanbaatar, just after his presence at the G7 summit in Hiroshima. A visit that owes nothing to chance after its members called on Beijing to put pressure on Moscow in order to end the aggression in Ukraine. Mongolia, the country with the lowest population density in the world, is landlocked between China and Russia.
Uranium mine project in Mongolia
The Élysée evokes a very important stake on the geostrategic level. These include “loosening the constraint on Russia’s neighbors and giving them the choice of their option”, according to an adviser to the president. Precisely, this democratic country seeks to diversify its partnerships and France can find its interest there. In the context of the war in Ukraine and the sanctions against the belligerent Russian, Paris is indeed seeking to diversify its energy supplies, which could be done thanks to Mongolia, a pool of mineral resources.
The French nuclear group Orano is working in particular on a uranium mine project on Mongolian territory and it could be one of the largest in the world. There is no doubt that this subject will be addressed by Emmanuel Macron during the few hours he will spend in Ulaanbaatar before returning to Paris.