The French Polar Strategy, drafted two years ago by the French Ambassador for the Poles and Oceans, Olivier Poivre d’Arvor (in office for almost four years), is back in action. Following the Paris Appeal for the Poles and Glaciers, the Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences was proclaimed in mid-August by the UN General Assembly in New York. A pivotal event, linking polar and glacial sciences, which may well enable the poles to move up the international and national political agendas.
We spoke to the French Ambassador for the Poles and Oceans, Olivier Poivre d’Arvor, on his return from a meeting with UN Secretary General António Guterres, and as he prepares for the June 2025 UN Ocean Conference in Nice.
On August 13, the United Nations agreed to allocate the decade 2025-2034 to cryospheric sciences, based on a text proposed by France and Tajikistan. How far-reaching is this decision?
The fact that it was adopted by consensus is quite incredible, because at the moment, it’s not easy to get people to vote together. This is not just for the benefit of France, it goes beyond that. One of the first objectives of the French Polar Strategy was to build a major international event. We did this with the One Planet Polar Summit, by launching the Paris Call to Action for Poles and Glaciers, in which we set up a decade for cryospheric sciences on a universal scale, so that scientists from all over the world would work together, and not separately, to analyze what’s happening in the cryosphere, in the Arctic, in Antarctica, and on all the world’s glaciers.
Right, glaciers on the ridges of the Fann Mountains (western Tajikistan). Image: Camille Lin
In Tajikistan, a Year of the Glacier will be launched at the end of June 2025. At the beginning of 2025 in France, with the President of the Republic, we will organize an event at UNESCO headquarters, similar to what is currently being done with ocean sciences and the International Oceanographic Commission. We will then conclude these 10 years of scientific cooperation with an International Polar Year in 2032-2033.
Sustainability is just as important, beyond the people and missions we carry out. Now it’s up to the United Nations to take over, through Unesco in particular, and with the World Meteorological Organization. Unesco will be in charge of this decade, because its mandate includes the vocation of science on a United Nations scale. After that, it’s up to countries to invent new forms of cooperation.
Honestly, this is a major step forward, because it brings the polar and glacial issues closer together, through the effects of climate change and the disappearance of polar ice caps. So it broadens the vision of a polar strategy dedicated solely to the Arctic and Antarctic. And above all, it will encourage Americans, Europeans, Chinese and African scientists to work together, at a time when it’s not always easy to do so between competing powers, as we once did with the Russians.
Won’t this also have the effect of shifting polar affairs to a new area of cooperation, other than the Arctic Council or the Antarctic Treaty system?
The Antarctic Treaty makes it possible to maintain, in an essential way, the ambition of the Madrid Protocol, i.e. no commercial, industrial or nuclear activity… But if you look at the Arctic Council, I find that the Arctic countries are extremely jealous of their prerogatives, and they weren’t the best allies for us at the One Planet Polar Summit. It’s a good thing that countries like Australia and China were there, because there’s a kind of Arctic protectionism, even though we’re not talking about subsoil riches, hydrocarbons or shipping – far from it – but about the dramatic situation of the Greenland ice cap and the cryosphere. This decade has a universal purpose; the Antarctic Treaty and the Arctic Councils do not originate from the United Nations.
This is the first time that the international community has reached agreement at UN level on the issue of ice and the disappearance of ice, including the poles. This goes hand in hand with the issue of rising sea levels. Admittedly, half of this is due to rising water temperatures, but half is due to the melting of the poles. I was in Tonga last week with António Guterres on this subject. I believe that the United Nations framework, without replacing management frameworks in the North or South, has the merit of imagining, through science, universal cooperation and not necessarily neighborly cooperation.
This decade will enable us in France to work in Antarctica on a major program for which we are trying to pool funding with, in particular, the Germans and Australians. We’ve always had a great French polar adventure, but it hasn’t always been supported by public authorities or politicians. And we can’t fail to recognize that the President of the Republic was probably the first French president to take an interest in this subject.
In the current context of government transition, how can we ensure that the billion euros announced between now and 2030 by the President will be channeled into projects dedicated to polar science and glaciers?
To give it a budgetary reality, the Conseil interministériel des pôles, which involves various ministries, including Research, Defense, Ecological Transition, Foreign Affairs, as well as the Secrétariat d’État chargé de la Mer, should meet with plans to invest 1 billion euros. We had already brought together the various ministers’ offices to validate the polar strategy. The important thing now is to have a guarantee and to be able to access the necessary funds when we need them. Cipol will have to meet, and I imagine that this will happen in the coming months, but there are other issues on the political agenda.
In the coming months, we’ll be christening the Tara Polar Station, a one-of-a-kind vessel.
When the Tara Polar Station is ready, we’ll make sure the President can visit it. This program has been very well managed by Tara, the French government is partly financing it, and it should be ready by the end of the year. The counterpart to this project is Jean-Louis Étienne’s Polar Pod, which is running a little behind schedule. It’s going to be delayed by a year, I think. These are two emblematic programs supported by the public authorities, but carried out by a somewhat private expedition model and by explorers, as there have always been in France. There’s also a project to set up a resource center on the history of the poles, which the French Polar Institute could support. I also think we need a living museographic space on the poles, but it’s difficult to be everywhere at once.
When Parliament reconvenes, could a cross-party working group get back to work on a polar programming law?
It’s no longer a question of polar programming, but of obtaining the budgets to pay the bills. We’re talking about credits over several years. I went to inspect Dumont-d’Urville, and the station’s renewal would cost around a hundred million euros and take ten years to complete. For Concordia, renovation is not expected before 2030.
The French Polar Institute has its own logic; it’s a logistical instrument that works well with CNRS research. To ensure that it retains its identity, President Macron and I have favored the idea of an institute that is developed rather than merged with Ifremer. After that, they can rely on Ifremer, as is already the case with the oceanographic fleet. I’m resolutely in favor of this, as was Jean Castex, the Prime Minister in office when the Strategy was drafted.
You’ve written a book about the journey of two Arctic terns across the polar issues, Deux étés par an, which we highly recommend, but contrary to all expectations, you didn’t use the story of the explorers, even though this is often a way of arousing readers’ interest.
I don’t think we can be content to revel in the past, even if it has been carried forward by admirable men. We’re all familiar with the Charcot, Victor and others. That said, we’ve made good progress, for example: Paul-Émile Victor’s cabin is about to be restored in Greenland. The French ambassador to Denmark, Christophe Parisot, set up this project, first to determine to whom the hut legally belonged, then to find the means to restore it using private funds. But we mustn’t live too much in the past. Above all, we must allow the new Paul-Émile Victor and Commandant Charcot to exist. That’s my mission today.
Interview by Camille Lin, Polar Journal AG
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