Today's Date:

The Foreign Minister made a statement on France’s action following the disaster in the Indian Ocean.

From day one of the disaster, France has taken action in numerous ways to come to the aid of the French victims and local populations and speed up the reconstruction.

To date, 68 of the 95 French victims of the disaster have been identified. Our 23 experts in Thailand are pursuing their efforts and this week have received the support of a Defence Ministry sniffer-dog team. The Foreign Minister will have a meeting with the victims’ families on 25 June.

As regards reconstruction, there has been a substantial financial effort (grants of €25 million including in particular €20 million of government money and €3 million allocated by the water agencies, a €300 million budget of concessional loans managed by the French Development Agency and Finance Ministry and, following a French initiative in the Paris Club, postponement of the repayment dates for €144 million of Indonesian and Sri Lankan debt owed to France in 2005).

An interministerial delegate was appointed to coordinate the various French ministries’ assistance to the States hit by the disaster on 26 December 2004 and maintain the dialogue with the non-governmental players (non-governmental organizations, businesses and local authorities).

Measures have also been taken to improve both the machinery for preventing large-scale disasters (establishment, with UNESCO, of a regional early-warning system in the Indian Ocean) and the response to them (creation, in the European Union and United Nations frameworks, of rapid reaction and humanitarian action mechanisms).

Detailed information on French action to help the victims' families and with reconstruction can be found at www.tsunami.gouv.fr./.