Paris: You have ‘Gaul’ to snub us

French officials are fuming over President Biden’s decision to exclude America’s oldest ally from a three-country security pact that will provide nuclear submarines to Australia, likening the snub to being stabbed in the back.

France’s embassy abruptly canceled a Friday-night gala in DC that was set to celebrate the 240th anniversary of the French navy’s victory in a battle that helped secure American independence from Britain.

Earlier, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France Info radio, “It is really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed and I’m angry today, with a lot of bitterness, about this breach.”

“This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do,” Le Drian told France Info. “I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies.”

The so-called AUKUS initiative includes the UK and aims to strengthen cooperation as China emerges as a strategic threat.

France has several large island territories in the Pacific and Indian oceans and as a result of the Biden initiative lost its own partnership with Australia to build conventional submarines.

The French outrage caught Washington off guard and forced Biden-administration officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken to give groveling expressions of gratitude to France, a NATO ally.

“The president said and I want to emphasize again, we cooperate incredibly closely with France on many shared priorities in the Indo-Pacific but also beyond and around the world,” Blinken said.

Ironically, the new pact was aimed at shoring up US relations with Australia after Biden snubbed Prime Minister Scott Morrison in the recent Afghanistan troop pullout. Australia learned of the US withdrawal date from news reports and Biden didn’t call Morrison during the frantic evacuation of Kabul last month.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki fended off reporter questions about the reason France was excluded from the pact — and about why the news was given in such an undiplomatic manner.

“There are a range of partnerships that include the French and some partnerships that don’t,” she said.