Brasilia/Prensa Latina
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, alongside his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, defended this Wednesday the support of Paris in Brazil’s search for strategic autonomy and the promotion of peace in South America.
Both leaders participated, at the Itaguaí base in Rio de Janeiro, in the baptism and launch into the sea of the Tonelero submersible, the result of the association between Brazil and France within the framework of the Submarine Development Program (Prosub), signed in 2008.
Lula began his speech by praising the long and friendly relationship between the two countries and pointed out that the protection of this natural heritage and the maintenance of the South Atlantic as a Zone of Peace and Cooperation are central aspects of Brazilian foreign policy.
“In the last 150 years, these national objectives have become a reality with French support,” said the former union member, who assured that several of the Navy’s ships were built in the European nation.
He specified that Prosub is the largest and most important international cooperation project in defense matters in Brazil.
“It guarantees Brazilian sovereignty on our coastline, strengthens the naval industry, with job and income generation, and promotes the development of the sector with a lot of innovation,” he said.
He certified that, on this occasion, the Tonelero, the third in the series of conventional submarines developed with France starting in 2008, was launched into the sea.
He revealed that Brazil already has two Scorpène class submarines, the Riachuelo and the Humaitá. In 2025, the year of the bicentennial of relations with France, we will launch a fourth into the sea, the Angostura.
The Brazilian president also reported that, together with Macron, who is on his second day of a three-day visit to Brazil, “we agreed to expand this effort with the creation of the Bilateral Armaments Committee, focusing on the development of synergies and promoting greater balance in our trade in defense products.
He explained that, in the space field, the geostationary satellite built in Nice in 2017 ensured independence and sovereignty in defense communications and involved a broad process of technology absorption and transfer.
For Lula, the association with France will allow countries to prepare to live with this diversity, without worrying about any type of war.
He mentioned Brazil’s intention to develop an “artificial intelligence of good”, with the purpose of solving the problems of planet Earth and combating the dissemination of fake news.
He reiterated that Brazil will be alongside all countries seeking peace and stressed that “war does not build, it only destroys.”
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