How can Australia repair its relationship with France after the AUKUS submarine row?

[Neferti]

How can Australia repair its relationship with France after the AUKUS submarine row?

The continuing diplomatic rift between France and Australia is "not about the submarines", says Romain Fathi, a French-Australian historian from Flinders University.

"The French are very upset because [they] thought we had established a genuine, positive relationship with Australia," Dr Fathi said.

"But of course the French misunderstood Australian culture … the way the Australian psyche works."

The AUKUS pact with the UK and US to acquire nuclear submarines is seen as the most important strategic shift for Australia in more than half a century.
However, it has come at the expense of French-Australian relations, which some say are at the lowest point in living memory.

So, what are the implications for the Pacific? What might France do to Australia in retaliation?

And what, if anything, can the federal government do to make up for it?
Why are the French so angry?

The French government responded to Australia's decision to dump the $90 billion contract for French-designed submarines last week by recalling its ambassadors to the US and Australia.

After a phone conversation between US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron, the French ambassador is heading back to Washington, but Mr Macron still isn't taking Prime Minister Scott Morrison's calls.

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham has said France knew "at the earliest available opportunity" that the deal with them would be cancelled, before it was publicly announced.

But Mr Morrison later said he had tried to call Mr Macron just hours before the AUKUS announcement.
And France now claims Australian diplomats wrote to them saying were "satisfied" with how the diesel-electric submarines deal was progressing on the very day it was canned.
"Communication has been pretty poor because we work on very different cultural systems," Dr Fathi told the ABC.

But he said it was "naive" of France to think it could replace the US and UK as Australia's most important ally.

"You can't just show up and think that suddenly things are going to revolve around you.
Australia was identified as a key partner after Mr Macron announced France's new Indo-Pacific strategy in 2018.

"The strategic partnership with [Australia] is based on a deep security and defence cooperation effort," declared the French government's 2021 update on the strategy released last month, with a foreword from Mr Macron.
"[Cooperation was] consolidated by the Naval Group being chosen in 2016 for the construction of the future Australian ocean-going submarines."

This was why, Dr Fathi said, the diplomatic spat was "not about the money".

"Twelve submarines is a drop in the ocean of contracts that France has.

"The submarines were the tip of the iceberg for a partnership with Australia, and for a 'third way' in the Pacific."
When Mr Morrison was in France in June, Mr Macron declared a "full and complete" commitment to the submarine deal and to "meet the needs of Australia" towards "common ambitions".

"[The submarines are] a pillar of our partnership and the relationship of confidence between our countries," he said.

France and Australia are both significant players in the Pacific, who share concern about the growing regional economic and military influence of China.
Erin Watson-Lynn, a Melbourne-based foreign affairs analyst, said France's public anger could also be intended to send a message to Beijing.

"If France is seen as too aligned to the US, or UK, or Australia, then it can't actually play that mediating role with China [and the EU]," she said.

What's more, the French government says 1.5 million of its citizens are in the Indo-Pacific.

At least 500,000 live in New Caledonia and French Polynesia, right on Australia's doorstep.

"France is actually very close geographically to Australia," Ms Watson-Lynn said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the "brutal" and "unpredictable" announcement of AUKUS reminded him of former US president Donald Trump.

Nevertheless, Dr Fathi said "it's a lot easier to retaliate against Canberra, than it is against Washington".

That is bad news for Australia, with Trade Minister Dan Tehan heading off to Europe with Canberra attempting to negotiate a free trade agreement.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed concern this week that "one of our member states has been treated in a way that is not acceptable, so we want to know what happened and why".

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-23/ ... /100480270

[Valkie]

Why do we need to?

Who cares about France, silly little frogs

[Black Orchid]

Leftist ABC opinion piece. I couldn't give a hoot about the French they were doing the wrong thing by blowing out the price and extending the delivery time. They hadn't even started.

As if they'd care if we ever got cut off from the rest of the world.

[Gordon]

I said exactly this, the only thing worse than wasting good money is throwing good money after bad.
This article nails at. And AUKUS is WAY WAY more than just subs, and way more than the Frogs could ever provide.


https://www.smh.com.au/national/how-we- ... 58u1u.html

[Valkie]

1) the subs were old technology
2) they haven't even started despite being given 2 billion dollars
3) by the time we got them they would be antiques
4) built by French they would go backward faster than forward.
5) This was a deal done by faceless public servants that obviously got some considerable bribes.

Good on the grubberment for canning them

We should be demanding compensation from France not paying them.

[Super Nova]

Forget the French, they will get over it.

We should have the latest and greatest and anything spent on old tech will be a waste of money but more importantly, if/when it is time for war, we need to best for our national defence and to protect the lives of those engaged in the fight. Well at least what the US will let us have.

[sprintcyclist]

1) the subs were old technology
2) they haven't even started despite being given 2 billion dollars
3) by the time we got them they would be antiques
4) built by French they would go backward faster than forward.
5) This was a deal done by faceless public servants that obviously got some considerable bribes.

Good on the grubberment for canning them

We should be demanding compensation from France not paying them.

yes

[Outlaw Yogi]

How can Australia repair its relationship with France after the AUKUS submarine row?

We can't, the French are notoriously hard to get on with .. and Why bother?

The French made ugly cars for decades just to be different. I don't have a problem with being different, but being different just to "be different" is stupid.

The point the French have to get over is that the deal was a dud. A cost blowout from $26bn to $90bn, with add ons and maintenance rounding out to $300bn is absurd. The French have no excuse to get stroppy.
The Japanese on the other hand having their Soyuz subs rejected had good reason to be upset, considering we wanted diesel/electric subs and they've got good ones, which unlike the French Barracuda are compatible with US weapons systems.

Moot point now, 'cos Gov has opted for nuke subs. I'm off 2 minds on this.
If we go nuke subs we need a real nuke industry to maintain them, and nuke industry implies we adopt nuke power.
The main problem with nuke power is it's super expensive. Nuke power stations don't run without "operating subsidies".
Consumers are bitching about electrickery costs doubling under the subsidised scheme for wind & solar.
How are they going to react when their power costs quadruple? .. as they will.

But .. and a big "but" .. we live in an increasingly hostile world and, nuke is the big stick of our era.

Thing is, once we go nuke, and nazi China is ganged up on and had its territorial aggression bashed out of it, we're unlikely to faze nuke out.
And nuke power aside from the cost has a plethora of hazard liabilities.

Phuk the French, and Phuk Chinese admin for forcing our hand.

[Black Orchid]

The Australian defence minister, Peter Dutton, has urged France to put aside any “hurt feelings” over the scrapping of the submarine contract in order to focus on the “great uncertainty with China in our region”.

A day after the French ambassador described the Australian government’s release of a private text message as a new low, Dutton said the envoy was simply “reading from a script from Paris” and Emmanuel Macron’s government was “posturing” ahead of next year’s presidential election.

With senior members of the Australian government defending the leak as necessary step to rebut the claim Scott Morrison was a liar, and with one backbencher labelling France a “spurned lover”, Labor went on the attack.

Labor’s Senate leader, Penny Wong, said Morrison had shown he was someone “whose reflex is spin rather than sincerity” and “stubbornly refuses to say, yes, we could have handled this better”.

“You don’t make a country more secure by demonstrating that you’re prepared to damage at any cost, damage partnerships and alliances,” Wong told the ABC.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australi ... np1taskbar

The French knew full well their deal was precarious and they'd been informed many times. All they did was blow out the cost by billions of dollars and push back the date we would receive these inferior subs. They have no-one to blame but themselves.

Dutton should be our PM and as per usual re Wong?

[Bobby]

The French knew full well their deal was precarious and they'd been informed many times. All they did was blow out the cost by billions of dollars and push back the date we would receive these inferior subs. They have no-one to blame but themselves.

Forget those diesel powered Frankenstein subs.
The French offered us nuclear subs and we wanted old design diesel subs from WW1.

I think we should have renegotiated a new deal with the French to supply say 3 nuclear subs
as fast as possible and still made the deal to get subs from the Poms or Yanks in 20 years time
(which is what ScoMo opted for.)
We can't wait 20 years for the AUKUS subs - it's too long.
We'll be all speaking Chinese by then.