It was in a traditional yurt that Emmanuel Macron was received Sunday for the first visit of a French president to Mongolia, where he promoted a partnership focused on energy with this landlocked country between China and Russia, which is attracting the interest of Westerners.
When he got off the plane in Ulaanbaatar at the end of the afternoon, the French president was greeted by a hedge of the Mongolian honor guard in traditional blue, red and yellow clothes. He tasted, as is the custom, a dry cow’s milk cheese offered to the distinguished guests. In Sukhbaatar Square, named after the hero of Mongolian independence, Emmanuel Macron then reviewed the troops with his counterpart Ukhnaa Khurelsukh.
The French head of state is stopping in Mongolia for a visit of a few hours after participating in the G7 summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima where the Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky was the guest star. The latter had come to address the leaders of non-aligned countries such as Brazil or India, also invited to the G7. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, France has been increasing its efforts to talk to countries that have not clearly condemned the war led by Moscow.
The brief but symbolic state visit to Mongolia is part of this context. With the Mongolian president, Emmanuel Macron said he “shared” his “determination to support an aggressed state” and his “objective of a return to peace on the European continent in the respect of international law”. He praised the contribution of Ulaanbaatar “to the multilateral system on which international security rests”, even if Ukhnaa Khurelsukh limited himself, in his statement to the press, to a vague plea in favor of “maintaining peace and security in the world”.
Critical metals
France also aims to strengthen bilateral energy ties. In particular, President Macron defended the cause of the French nuclear group Orano, which is already present in the country and is a candidate for a large-scale uranium mining project that must still be approved by the Mongolian government — potentially one of the largest mines in the world. He assured that the project would respect the “best environmental and social standards”, while the company is often criticized by local environmental movements.
“The partnership with Orano is a structuring element,” he added, referring to his quest for “energy sovereignty” for France. For its part, Paris is committed to facilitating the financing of Mongolia’s ecological transition with cooperation on renewable energy and nuclear power. This semi-desert country, subject to extreme temperatures, is particularly vulnerable to climate change.
What’s more, it is explained on the French side, it is 90% dependent on coal for its electricity and therefore needs to decarbonize its economy. Currently, 86% of Mongolia’s total exports of all goods are destined for China. Half of these Chinese purchases are coal. “The fact that Mongolia is on the way back (from Hiroshima, ed.) allows us to make this historic first” with important stakes on the “geostrategic level”, explained in the entourage of the French president.
“Mongolia is a landlocked country between Russia and China, but also a country that has a model of government that is liberal, which holds elections, which has experienced alternations, and which moreover seeks to diversify its partnerships to be more robust and to be able to deal under better conditions with its large Russian and Chinese neighbors,” it was stressed.
In Ulaanbaatar, after his meeting with his counterpart under a yurt installed inside the presidential palace, Emmanuel Macron attended a state dinner at the Genghis Khan Museum, named after the great Mongolian conqueror of the 13th century. The institution will lend part of its collection to the Museum of History in Nantes, western France, for an exhibition scheduled for October. The French president, who is due to return to Paris in the evening, has invited Ukhnaa Khurelsukh for a state visit to France in October.
