French President Emmanuel Macron called for an end to "confrontation" while speaking on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, AFP reported.

Macron called France a counterbalancing force in a region long dominated by the superpower struggle between China and the United States.

"We don't believe in hegemony, we don't believe in confrontation, we believe in stability," Macron said.

He said regional powers, including France, which has overseas territories in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, including Réunion, New Caledonia and French Polynesia, have a role to play.

"We are in the jungle and we have two big elephants, trying to become more and more nervous," Macron said in his speech, which he gave in English.

"If they become very nervous and start war it will be a big problem for the rest of the jungle. You need cooperation of a lot of other animals: tigers, monkeys, and so on."

He said coordinated action is needed to address the overlapping crises facing the international community, from climate change to the economic turmoil caused by the war in Ukraine.

"Our Indo-Pacific strategy is how to provide dynamic balance in this environment," he said.

"How to provide precisely a sort of stability and equilibrium which could not be the hegemony of one of those, could not be the confrontation of the two major powers."

Macron called the war in Ukraine a major source of global instability and said all Asian countries must recognize their responsibility to act. France has worked to create a growing consensus to say that this war is also your problem because it will cause more destabilization, Macron said.