Bilateral Relations

The first visit to Burma by a French Foreign Minister (14-16 January 2012) made it possible to take an important step in the political dialogue between France and the Burmese authorities (see political relations). On this occasion the Minister had indicated that France would work with its partners in the European Union to lift, step by step, sanctions based on progress noted. The French policy towards Burma was in fact within the restrictive framework of the common position defined by the Council of the European Union in October 1996 and renewed every year since then.

On 22 April 2013, the European Council lifted sanctions against Burma (with the exception of the arms embargo), which opened a new era for Euro-Burma and Franco-Burma cooperation.

This development has led France, which was already conducting a very active diplomacy alongside the Burmese population and its civil society, particularly in the fields of culture, health, education and humanitarian aid. initiate new developments that resulted in January 2012 by tripling the resources devoted to Burma. The French Agency for Development (AFD), which now has an office in the embassy in Yangon, was authorized to intervene in Burma in the spring of 2012. In March 2013, the two foreign ministers discussed in Paris and the Deputy Minister for Development paid an official visit to Burma.

In June 2012, France was among the five European countries visited by Aung San Suu Kyi as part of her first major trip abroad since her release.

In July 2013, President Thein Sein made an official visit to France. Intervenant 65 years after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, this historic visit - the first visit to France of a Burmese Head of State - allowed meetings at high level with the President of the Republic, François Hollande, and former Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

Two weeks later, the visit to Burma of Mrs. Nicole Bricq, then Minister of Foreign Trade, was the occasion to sign an agreement on the Burmese debt. Intergovernmental exchanges are now recurrent in both directions. Several intergovernmental agreements are in preparation. Apart from the arms embargo, which remains in force, all the constituent areas of the bilateral relationship between two countries are now the subject of projects or programs of cooperation.