France’s Am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Guil­laume Pierre, has out­lined an am­bi­tious agen­da to ex­pand French in­vest­ment in this coun­try, with en­er­gy, in­fra­struc­ture, lo­gis­tics, and ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy at the cen­tre of the bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ship.

In an in­ter­view with the Busi­ness Guardian, Pierre point­ed to the strength of ex­ist­ing French com­mer­cial in­volve­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the en­er­gy sec­tor, while sig­nalling a clear in­ter­est in po­si­tion­ing T&T for the next phase of glob­al en­er­gy trans­for­ma­tion.

A cor­ner­stone of that re­la­tion­ship is Peren­co, which he de­scribed as the sec­ond-largest oil and gas pro­duc­er in the coun­try and a com­pa­ny seek­ing to grow its foot­print.

“They al­ready do a lot. They want to do more,” he said, not­ing that Peren­co re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic part­ner with ex­pan­sion plans un­der con­sid­er­a­tion.

He in­di­cat­ed that ad­di­tion­al French en­er­gy providers are mon­i­tor­ing de­vel­op­ments lo­cal­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly in a pe­ri­od of geopo­lit­i­cal change across the re­gion. In­vestor ap­petite ex­ists, but clar­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty re­main crit­i­cal fac­tors.

“What com­pa­nies like is pre­dictabil­i­ty,” he said, adding that part of his func­tion is to pro­vide ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion and fa­cil­i­tate con­nec­tions be­tween French firms and lo­cal de­ci­sion-mak­ers.

At the same time, he framed the fu­ture of the part­ner­ship as ex­tend­ing be­yond hy­dro­car­bons. A de­vel­op­ing hy­dro­gen ini­tia­tive in­volv­ing Trinida­di­an Philip Julien founder of Ke­nes­jay Green Ltd (KGL) and French re­new­able en­er­gy firm Hy­drogène de France (HDF En­er­gy) rep­re­sents what he de­scribed as long-term strate­gic think­ing.

The pro­posed hy­dro­gen plant, he said, fo­cus­es on green en­er­gy so­lu­tions and re­flects the ac­cel­er­at­ing glob­al de­mand for clean­er fu­els. Pierre ar­gued that while oil and gas will re­main es­sen­tial to T&T’s econ­o­my, a par­al­lel in­vest­ment in re­new­ables is nec­es­sary to sus­tain en­er­gy lead­er­ship over the com­ing decades.

“If Trinidad wants to re­main an en­er­gy pow­er­house af­ter be­ing so for 100 years as a big oil and gas-pro­duc­ing coun­try, I think Trinidad has to look at re­new­ables,” he said.

He point­ed to mount­ing in­ter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­to­ry pres­sure and struc­tur­al shifts in glob­al mar­kets favour­ing low­er-car­bon en­er­gy. Coun­tries that fail to di­ver­si­fy their en­er­gy base risk de­clin­ing com­pet­i­tive­ness over time, he added, es­pe­cial­ly as gas prices fluc­tu­ate and the era of abun­dant, in­ex­pen­sive hy­dro­car­bons fades.

For this coun­try, the tran­si­tion will re­quire reg­u­la­to­ry ad­just­ments and a re­cal­i­bra­tion of long-stand­ing as­sump­tions about the en­er­gy econ­o­my. How­ev­er, he main­tained that ear­ly po­si­tion­ing in green tech­nolo­gies could pre­serve the coun­try’s rel­e­vance as a re­gion­al en­er­gy hub.

French in­volve­ment in T&T ex­tends well be­yond oil and gas. Pierre high­light­ed a his­to­ry of ma­jor in­fra­struc­ture projects un­der­tak­en by French firms, un­der­scor­ing what he de­scribed as a long-stand­ing eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship.

Bouygues Bâ­ti­ment con­struct­ed the Port of Spain wa­ter­front, while Vin­ci was in­volved in key high­way works, in­clud­ing the north–south in­ter­con­nec­tion. French com­pa­nies al­so con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my in Tarou­ba.

In mar­itime lo­gis­tics, CMA CGM han­dles ap­prox­i­mate­ly half of the con­tain­er traf­fic through T&T, re­in­forc­ing the coun­try’s role as a re­gion­al trans­ship­ment and lo­gis­tics hub.

Pierre iden­ti­fied ur­ban ser­vices and util­i­ties as fur­ther ar­eas of op­por­tu­ni­ty. Ve­o­lia En­vi­ron­nement SA is cur­rent­ly en­gaged in wa­ter man­age­ment pro­grammes with WASA, re­flect­ing France’s glob­al ex­per­tise in waste treat­ment, sewage sys­tems and in­te­grat­ed city man­age­ment so­lu­tions.

Se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion is an­oth­er pil­lar of en­gage­ment. Thales, a leader in radar, an­ti-drone sys­tems and sur­veil­lance tech­nolo­gies, rep­re­sents po­ten­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion in bor­der pro­tec­tion and mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty. France main­tains six naval ves­sels based in Mar­tinique that pa­trol Caribbean wa­ters, a pres­ence Pierre linked di­rect­ly to re­gion­al crime and traf­fick­ing chal­lenges.

Trans­port and avi­a­tion have now been for­mal­ly added to France’s pri­or­i­ty list.

Last week, Pierre met with Min­is­ter of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion, Eli Za­k­our and the Min­istry’s Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary, Nico­lette Duke, to dis­cuss ex­pand­ing co­op­er­a­tion in the trans­port and avi­a­tion sec­tors.

The meet­ing fo­cused on po­si­tion­ing trans­port and avi­a­tion as dri­vers of eco­nom­ic growth, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and na­tion­al ef­fi­cien­cy.

Min­is­ter Za­k­our reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment to con­tin­ued en­gage­ment with the French Am­bas­sador to strength­en bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions and ex­plore strate­gic ini­tia­tives aligned with T&T’s trans­port and avi­a­tion de­vel­op­ment agen­da.

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has stat­ed that it is ad­vanc­ing strate­gic in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships aimed at fos­ter­ing in­no­va­tion, im­prov­ing op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and sup­port­ing sus­tain­able growth across the coun­try’s trans­port and avi­a­tion sys­tems.

Pierre not­ed that France pos­sess­es glob­al lead­er­ship in avi­a­tion man­u­fac­tur­ing, air traf­fic con­trol sys­tems he­li­copter ser­vices, air­port man­age­ment, and re­lat­ed tech­nolo­gies, cre­at­ing po­ten­tial align­ment with T&T’s sec­toral pri­or­i­ties.

France, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly one mil­lion cit­i­zens in its Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries and per­ma­nent mem­ber­ship on the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, views re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty as a mat­ter of na­tion­al in­ter­est. Traf­fick­ing in drugs, weapons, and peo­ple af­fects French ter­ri­to­ries di­rect­ly, cre­at­ing space for clos­er co­op­er­a­tion with Caribbean states.

Trade vol­umes be­tween France and T&T re­main mod­est rel­a­tive to po­ten­tial, with hy­dro­car­bons dom­i­nat­ing ex­changes. Pierre ar­gued that di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion is in the in­ter­est of both coun­tries.

He ref­er­enced the con­cept of “de-risk­ing”, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to food im­ports. A heavy re­liance on a sin­gle sup­ply chan­nel, he not­ed, cre­ates vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to price spikes or dis­rup­tion. France and Eu­rope could serve as bal­anc­ing sup­pli­ers, es­pe­cial­ly in high-qual­i­ty agri­cul­tur­al goods and agri-tech­nol­o­gy.

France is Eu­rope’s largest agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­er, and Pierre sug­gest­ed T&T has the scale and ca­pa­bil­i­ty to strength­en its own agri­cul­tur­al out­put with­in the Caribbean con­text, par­tic­u­lar­ly if re­gion­al food pro­duc­tion ini­tia­tives are re­vi­talise.

Ed­u­ca­tion, roots and

cul­tur­al cap­i­tal

Be­yond com­merce and se­cu­ri­ty, Pierre has pri­ori­tised aca­d­e­m­ic and knowl­edge part­ner­ships. He re­cent­ly en­gaged with of­fi­cials at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine, to ex­plore ex­pand­ed stu­dent ex­changes, joint re­search ini­tia­tives, and col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween French com­pa­nies and lo­cal fac­ul­ties.

A “French Day” is sched­uled at UWI’s St Au­gus­tine cam­pus on March 26, fea­tur­ing the­mat­ic work­shops in ar­eas such as en­gi­neer­ing and com­put­er sci­ence, along­side dis­cus­sions on re­search fund­ing and stu­dent mo­bil­i­ty. France is seek­ing to in­crease the num­ber of Caribbean stu­dents study­ing in Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe, and main­land French uni­ver­si­ties, view­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al ex­change as a foun­da­tion for long-term co­op­er­a­tion.

Pierre’s con­nec­tion to T&T is al­so per­son­al. Al­though this is his first am­bas­sado­r­i­al post­ing, he lived in the coun­try for two years as a child and at­tend­ed Holy Name Prep School.

Over sub­se­quent decades, he main­tained ties to the wider Caribbean, in­clud­ing pro­fes­sion­al as­sign­ments in Haiti fol­low­ing the 2011 earth­quake and reg­u­lar en­gage­ment with France’s re­gion­al ter­ri­to­ries.

He pre­sent­ed his cre­den­tials in ear­ly Oc­to­ber and de­scribed his ini­tial months as pro­duc­tive, cit­ing strong en­gage­ment with Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and sev­er­al Cab­i­net min­is­ters.

While eco­nom­ic diplo­ma­cy forms the core of his man­date, Pierre al­so re­flect­ed on Car­ni­val as a defin­ing na­tion­al as­set. He char­ac­terised it as an ex­pres­sion of this coun­try’s cre­ativ­i­ty and so­cial co­he­sion, a pe­ri­od when dif­fer­ences re­cede and col­lec­tive iden­ti­ty takes cen­tre stage.

Car­ni­val, he ob­served, has evolved in­to a glob­al en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try, with Trinidad-in­spired fes­ti­vals in Toron­to, Lon­don and New York gen­er­at­ing em­ploy­ment and ex­port earn­ings. For him, it stands along­side oil, gas and man­u­fac­tur­ing as pil­lars of na­tion­al strength.

His diplo­mat­ic fo­cus re­mains on ex­pand­ing tan­gi­ble eco­nom­ic co­op­er­a­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in en­er­gy tran­si­tion, in­fra­struc­ture mod­erni­sa­tion, and tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven growth.

With French com­pa­nies ac­tive­ly as­sess­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties and new del­e­ga­tions from Mar­tinique and Guade­loupe ex­pect­ed in the com­ing weeks, the next phase of en­gage­ment will hinge on con­vert­ing in­ter­est in­to sus­tained in­vest­ment.