Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had a "long conversation" with French President Emmanuel Macron focusing on COVID-19 and collaborating to vaccinate the Pacific region.
Ardern described the 90-minute Tuesday morning phone call with her French counterpart as "quite a long conversation" and "quite wide-ranging", with the coronavirus the main topic of conversation.
"We are particularly both mindful of making sure that we are supporting the Pacific region with vaccination and vaccination plans. That's an area where we'll work together to make sure we are supporting the Pacific region," Ardern told reporters.
France has several territories in the Pacific such as New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna. New Zealand's territories in the region include Tokelau and the Cook Islands, which are part of the Realm of New Zealand.
The leaders' discussion around vaccinations comes as another vaccine developed overseas was announced as around 90 percent effective without any serious side effects.
The AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by Oxford University, was 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 when administered as a half dose followed by a full dose at least one month apart, data from late-stage trials in the UK and Brazil found.
US-based Moderna said earlier this month its experimental vaccine proved to be 94.5 percent effective. It came a week after Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech said their vaccine had been more than 90 percent effective, which they later changed to 95 percent after further analysis.
Will vaccines be mandatory?
Ardern has previously confirmed that New Zealanders will not be forced to get vaccinated for COVID-19 but the Government would strongly encourage it, once they start to become widely available.
But the Government is exploring the prospect of mandatory vaccinations to travel, depending on how effective the vaccines turn out to be.
"Our goal has to be to be in a position where you have that level of immunity that we're able to safely go about our lives day-to-day," Ardern told reporters.
The Prime Minister said it will take some time to do some "sequencing".
She explained: "Whether or not you have open borders but requirements at the border or whether or not you've got enough immunisation within a country that that becomes less of an issue.
"These are strategies we need to keep working through and ultimately though, 2021 will be the year of vaccine."
COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said he expects other nations will be looking at some sort of certification process to confirm if someone has been vaccinated in order to see free movement again.
He said it's something the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) will be looking into.
"I think we do need to know if someone's been vaccinated or not. Once we've got to the point where vaccination is more widely available around the world we would want to know that as part of our overall protection measures and so I imagine that's going to be the subject of a lot of diplomatic discussion."
It comes as Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said COVID-19 vaccinations would be compulsory on Qantas flights once international travel kicks off again and he will be changing the terms and conditions of travel to make sure of it.
Hipkins said it's too soon to say if Air New Zealand should follow suit because a successful vaccine is yet to be distributed across the globe.
Ardern's conversation with her French counterpart came the day after she caught up with United States President-elect Joe Biden who expressed interest in New Zealand's COVID-19 response.
"Much of the call focused on the desire of our two countries to work cooperatively on a range of issues of mutual interest. We discussed COVID-19 and the President-elect spoke positively about New Zealand's response to the pandemic," Ardern said of the conversation.
"The President-elect also stated that was his number one priority and I offered to him and his team access to the New Zealand team and health officials in order to share our experience and things we've learnt on our COVID-19 journey."
What else did Ardern and Marcon discuss?
Ardern said she and Macron also caught up on the Christchurch Call, initiated by the pair following the March 15, 2019, Christchurch terror attack.
The Christchurch Call is a voluntary commitment from governments and online providers intended to thwart terrorist and violent extremist content online, after the terrorist streamed the atrocity online.
Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube, as well as Australia, Canada, the UK, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Norway and Sweden are among the more than 60 signatories so far.
"It was a good chance for us to catch up on some of the Christchurch Call, particularly he has had recent experience with some of the crisis response protocols, so a chance for us to check in and see that they were working as we intended," Ardern said.
Last month Macron deployed thousands of soldiers to protect sites such as places of worship after a woman was beheaded and two others were killed in the French city of Nice, in what was believed to be a terrorist attack.
It came just under two weeks after a middle-school teacher in Paris was beheaded by an 18-year-old attacker outraged by the teacher showing a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in a classroom.
The Christchurch Call included aspects such as the Shared Crisis Response Protocol designed to strengthen the response of a terrorist attack.
Ardern said there had been "some good responses" to the Christchurch Call but "some variability", so she wants to work with Marcon to "follow through" on the commitment.
