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France on Friday recalled its ambassadors to the us and Australia for consultations during a ferocious row over the scrapping of a submarine contract, an unprecedented step that exposed the extent of French anger against its allies.
President Emmanuel Macron ordered the recalling of the envoys after Canberra ditched a deal to shop for French submarines in favour folks vessels, secretary of state Jean-Yves Le Drian said Le Drian said during a statement that the choice was made to “immediately” recall the 2 French ambassadors thanks to “the exceptional seriousness of the announcements made on September 15 by Australia and therefore the us .”
The abandonment of the ocean-class submarine project that Australia and France had been performing on since 2016 constituted “unacceptable behaviour among allies and partners,” the minister said Their consequences affect the very concept we’ve of our alliances, our partnerships, and therefore the importance of the Indo-Pacific for Europe,” he added.
US President Joe Biden announced the new Australia-US-Britain defence alliance on Wednesday, extending US nautilus technology to Australia also as cyber defence, applied AI and undersea capabilities The pact is widely seen as aimed toward countering the increase of China.
The move infuriated France, which lost a contract to provide conventional submarines to Australia that was worth Aus$50 billion (31 billion euros, $36.5 billion) when signed in 2016 A White House official expressed “regret” over the French envoy’s recall but added “we will still be engaged within the coming days to resolve our differences, as we’ve done at other points over the course of our long alliance.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby meanwhile acknowledged that telephone talks earlier between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and French counterpart Florence Parly showed “that there’s still much work to try to to in terms of our defence relationship with France.”
DIRECTLY AFFECTING THE VISION’
The French ambassador recalls from the us and Australia, key allies of France, are unprecedented. Withdrawing envoys may be a pis aller diplomatic step taken when relations between feuding countries are plunged into crisis but highly unusual between allies I am being recalled to Paris for consultations,” France ambassador to the US Philippe Etienne wrote on Twitter. “This follows announcements directly affecting the vision we’ve of our alliances, of our partnerships and of the importance of the Indo-Pacific for Europe.”
Paris sees itself as a serious power within the Indo-Pacific thanks to overseas territories like New Caledonia and French Polynesia which provides it a strategic and military foothold unmatched by the other European country France had made no effort to disguise its fury even before the recalls and on Thursday Le Drian accused Australia of back-stabbing and Washington of Donald Trump-era behaviour over the submarines deal.
The row has for now a minimum of placed on hold hopes of a post-Trump renaissance in Paris-Washington relations under Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a fluent French speaker who was educated in Paris France’s European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune also said Friday that Paris was unable to trust Canberra in ongoing European Union trade deal talks following the choice France meanwhile called off a gala at its ambassador’s house in Washington scheduled for Friday The event was alleged to celebrate the anniversary of a decisive battle within the American Revolution , during which France played a key role.
‘EXTREMELY IRRESPONSIBLE’
Australia earlier shrugged off Chinese anger over its decision to accumulate the US nuclear-powered submarines, while vowing to defend the rule of law in airspace and waters where Beijing has staked hotly contested claims Beijing described the new alliance as an “extremely irresponsible” threat to regional stability, questioning Australia’s commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and warning the Western allies that they risked “shooting themselves within the foot”.
China has its own “very substantive programme of nautilus building”, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison argued Friday in an interview with station 2GB China claims most of the resource-rich South China Sea, through which trillions of dollars in shipping trade passes annually, rejecting competing claims from Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam Beijing has been accused of deploying a variety of military hardware including anti-ship missiles and surface-to-air missiles there, and ignored a 2016 international tribunal decision that declared its historical claim over most of the waters to be without basis.
Australian secretary of state Marise Payne, in Washington, said she understood the “disappointment” in Paris and hoped to figure with France to make sure it understands “the value we place on the bilateral relationship and therefore the work that we would like to still do together”.
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