French furious at Biden over Australia submarine deal
France’s top diplomat unleashed a stream of invective against President Joe Biden after the U.S. and the U.K. announced a new security alliance for the Pacific region which will cause the French defense industry to lose out on some $65 billion.
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Info on Thursday that he felt “stabbed in the back” over the “unacceptable” deal that will hurt French business and shuts the French military out of a key initiative in Western efforts to build a bulwark against China.
“This unilateral, brutal, unforeseeable decision really looks like what Mr. Trump was doing,” Le Drian said. “This move is unacceptable between allies who want to develop a structured Indo-Pacific partnership.”
French officials were blindsided Wednesday night when the U.S. and the U.K. announced a new security partnership to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, beefing up their ability to deploy in China’s backyard. That agreement scuttled a 2016 deal that Australia sealed with France to acquire 12 diesel-powered subs from shipbuilder Naval Group.
The Chinese government also reacted angrily. Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, described the agreement as “extremely irresponsible” on Thursday, while Chinese state media warned Australia that it was now an “adversary” of China and should “prepare for the worst.”
At a regular news briefing in
Beijing, Zhao said the alliance “seriously undermined regional peace and stability, aggravated the arms race and hurt international nonproliferation efforts.”
He accused the United States and Britain of “double standards” and using nuclear exports as a “tool in their geopolitical games,” as he admonished them to “abandon their outdated Cold War mentality” — a common refrain from ministry spokespeople.
The snub is a personal blow for French President Emmanuel Macron who hosted Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the Élysée palace in June and vaunted their friendship at the Group of Seven meeting in the U.K. the same month. Le Drian had described the French-Australian submarine contract as the deal of the century.
Le Drian said he’ll be seeking explanations from the Australians over how they plan to exit their contractual obligations to Naval Group, though he didn’t explicitly call for financial compensation.
It also exposes the gulf between Paris and Washington since Biden took office. Macron has criticized the manner of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and questioned the efficiency of Biden’s suggestion of a patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines.
Le Drian said Wednesday night that the submarine alliance highlights the need for the European Union to pursue its own “strategic autonomy,” meaning developing the capacity to act independently from the U.S.
France is the only European nation with a significant military presence in the Pacific region, and it also has an overseas territory, New Caledonia, about 750 miles east of Australia. The Naval Group, the French shipbuilder that had expected to build the subs, is mostly state-owned.