PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy opened France’s first military facilities in the Gulf on Tuesday, deepening the government’s alliance with the United Arab Emirates and highlighting its shifting foreign policy priorities.

Mr. Sarkozy attended a ceremony to open French naval, air and army facilities in Abu Dhabi. The bases are the first permanent French military installations to be built outside of French territory since the process of decolonization began more than half a century ago.

The Gulf is of geopolitical importance both because of its gas and oil resources and because of its proximity to Iran. Abu Dhabi sits just 225 kilometers, or 140 miles, directly across the Gulf from Iran.

“The permanent French military installation in Abu Dhabi shows the responsibility that France, as a global power, agrees to assume with its closest partners, in a region that is a fault line for the whole world,” Mr. Sarkozy said in the text of a speech delivered in the Emirate.