Australia and France intensify their war of words over the canceled submarine deal

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Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defended his decision to back out of a submarine deal with the French government as the row over Canberra’s decision to sign a new security pact with the United States and the United Kingdom intensifies.

Morrison said he had “no regrets about the decision to put Australia’s national interest first” in comments that came just hours after France, angered by its exclusion from the agreement, ridiculed the UK’s role.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s foreign minister, said Paris recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra on Friday, but considered it unnecessary to do the same in London because “we know [the UK’s] permanent opportunism.”

“Great Britain in this case is a bit like the fifth wheel on a bus,” Le Drian said in the France 2 interview.

In a sign of Washington’s eagerness to calm the worsening crisis, it emerged on Sunday that US President Joe Biden had requested a call with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss the submarine deal.

Australia said on Wednesday it had canceled a Franco-Australian $50 billion deal for 12 conventional submarines that had been in the pipeline for five years and would instead develop at least eight nuclear-powered submarines with the United States and the United Kingdom in a tripartite deal that excluded France.

The so-called Oukos deal – which is intended to counter growing Chinese power in the Indo-Pacific – has sparked outrage in Paris, where a French diplomat said France was only told of it on Wednesday morning despite attempts to gather information from US officials in the past. days.

Morrison denied he was dishonest with the French government in the lead-up to the so-called Aukus deal, saying he raised concerns about the French-Australian submarine program “a few months ago.”

“They had every reason to know that we had deep and serious concerns that the capability offered by the attack-class submarine would not meet our strategic interests,” he told a news conference on Sunday. We have made it clear that we will make a decision based on our strategic national interest.

Le Drian said, “There was a lie, there was duplicity, there was a huge breach of trust, there was contempt, so it’s not good between us, it’s not good at all. That means there is a crisis.”

Clement Bonn, France’s Minister for Europe, said: “I don’t see how we can trust our Australian partner . . . the word of signing a contract is worth something. If we no longer have confidence, we cannot move forward.”

On Boris Johnson’s ambitions for “global Britain” after Brexit, Byon told state TV: “You see, it’s a return to the American fold and acceptance of some form of dependency status.”

Liz Truss, Britain’s new foreign secretary, wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that the Oaks agreement demonstrated Britain’s willingness to “defend our interests and challenge unfair practices and malicious acts”.

The article made no mention of France or China, but Johnson’s foreign policy is about to be tested as he prepares to meet US President Joe Biden at the White House next week.

British officials insist that the Aukus Agreement was motivated by security issues and that the UK was “fundamental” to the entire plan, but it was not intended to disdain Paris. One said, “We didn’t want to bother the French.”

Tensions with Macron have already risen after Brexit – notably over the Northern Ireland Protocol – and British officials are bracing for more “turmoil until the next presidential election and beyond”.

Escalating tensions with China could also complicate Johnson’s attempts to persuade Chinese President Xi Jinping to back ambitious plans to tackle climate change at the COP26 United Nations summit in November in Glasgow.

Alok Sharma, the British president of the summit, acknowledged on Sunday that “it has not yet been confirmed” that President Xi will attend. Xi has not traveled abroad since January 2020. But Sharma told the BBC: “I definitely expect China to send a negotiating team to Glasgow.”

As far back as June, French officials said they asked their Australian counterparts several times if they wanted to change the contract from conventional submarines to nuclear-powered submarines, which France also makes, but those questions were met with silence.

A French diplomat admitted that in a meeting on June 24, Australian officials questioned whether the attack-class submarines being developed were still adapting to an “evolving and exacerbating threat environment”.

However, he stressed that there was no mention of “the request to move from conventional to nuclear-powered.” [submarines] The question was never mentioned to move from the plat[eral] Discuss with us for trailers[eral] with the United States and the United Kingdom.

Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton previously said he was excited to take the submarine deal in a different direction, with new partners, because “the French had a version that was no better than the one run by the US.” [and] United kingdom”.

There has also been concern for some time about rising costs and delays in the French-Australian programme.

French officials and company executives vehemently disputed the view that operational problems supported Australia’s decision, saying those problems were resolved early in the year.

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