France and Australia are working together to help calm the global financial crisis and push for reforms to prevent a recurrence, French state secretary for overseas affairs Yves Jego said Monday.

The crisis will be on the agenda at talks between Jego and Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith when they meet later Monday during a one-day visit aimed at strengthening relations between the two nations.

The two men are due to discuss cooperation between France and Australia in preparation for a G20 summit to be held in Washington later this week aimed at easing the turmoil battering world markets and economies.

"The financial crisis is another reason for France and Australia to boost cooperation and work in closer partnership," Jego told a small group of reporters before the meeting.

"We want a full partnership with Australia as we share a common vision about working with the international community to emerge from the crisis," he said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is working hard to help the world emerge intact from the economic firestorm and to push through reforms to ensure that a similar financial meltdown never happens again, Jego said.

France and Australia agreed that all governments must work together to first stabilise the financial system and then boost governance to halt the risky operations by financial institutions that sparked the turmoil, he said.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has expressed similar views, calling for global regulation to prevent executives of banks that engage in risky deals from being financially rewarded for the transactions.

Jego is also in Australia to mark the 90th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I, in which 46,000 Australian troops died while fighting in France, Belgium and on other European battlefields.

Fighting side by side had created an unbreakable bond between Australia and France that could never be broken and should be used to move towards even closer ties, notably in the Pacific Ocean, he said.

"Ties that are forged in pain and in blood underpin our desire to boost cooperation today," he added.

The French Pacific territories of New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna are all neighbours of Australia, which agreed earlier this year to boost military cooperation with France in the region.

Australian Parliamentary Secretary for the Pacific, Duncan Kerr, will travel with Jego to New Caledonia later Monday as the two countries move to strengthen regional cooperation in a range of areas.

"In recent years, as a result of New Caledonia's increasing autonomy, relations between Australia and New Caledonia have broadened and strengthened," Kerr said of the trip, during which he will attend a remembrance day ceremony with Jego.