France’s fury strains ties with allies

• Macron makes it known the French are seething after Australia cancels deal for submarines in favour of new pact with US and UK

President Emmanuel Macron is making it clear that French fury is not ebbing after Australia cancelled a $66bn submarine order in favour of a new defence pact with the US and Britain.

Emmanuel Macron is making it clear that French fury is not ebbing after Australia cancelled a $66bn submarine order in favour of a new defence pact with the US and Britain.

After the deal was announced on Wednesday, the French president recalled ambassadors to Washington and Canberra and cancelled events, a symbolic gesture rare among such close allies. French officials say Macron is looking for an adequate response, and they have been renewing his calls for Europe to boost its own defence capabilities.

Macron’s public reaction is partly directed at a domestic audience. Seven months before a presidential election, his main rival, the nationalist Marine Le Pen, is closing in according to some polls. He wants to show voters he is tough. But allies are likely to soon call time on the outrage.

US President Joe Biden reached out to speak to Macron by phone in the coming days. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appeared to brush it all off, saying that relations with France were “rock-solid”, while Australia’s Scott Morrison does not seem in any mood to make amends.

Once the dust settles, Macron could seek to obtain concessions such as loosening Covid-19 restrictions on travel to the US or boosting American aid in Africa’s Western Sahel region where French soldiers are fighting Islamist extremists.

“Now that the US has got the message and has just made a first (small) gesture, we should defend our interests,” Parisbased researcher and Sciences Po teacher Antoine Bondaz said on Twitter, suggesting France could seek other ways to co-operate with allies in the region.

But the reality is that once anger turns to acceptance, Macron has limited backing for any meaningful response from the rest of Europe.

His ideas on reducing European reliance on US and Nato are not new — he once called the alliance ” brain dead”

— and may not get much traction. Leaders in Eastern Europe and the Baltics are sceptical of any move that would reduce the American presence in a region where they feel threatened by Russia. Germany is nearing an election and coalition talks that might go into next year.

What has irked the French is that they were not informed the submarine deal was being hatched, according to the officials. Before leaving Canberra, ambassador JeanPierre Thebault said the Australian defence minister only contacted his French counterpart after the deal was reported by media outlets, adding there were “no warnings” during the 18 months that the plan was being hammered out. France had been “stabbed in the back”.

The French are also angry they were not asked to be part of the expanded US-AustraliaUK strategic partnership.

France has interests in the Pacific and Indian oceans, with about 2-million citizens and thousands of soldiers spread across several French islands, including New Caledonia and Reunion. Like the US and Australia, it is wary of an emboldened China and has always seen itself as a key player in the region.

Mixed up with all that is dismay over an economic loss

— in signing the deal for the nuclear-powered submarines, the Australian government dumped a contract with Paris to build 12 French dieselpowered submarines.

Morrison told reporters that the decision to cancel the French contract was made on “sovereign, national defence interests” and that France was aware of Australia’s concerns on the capability of submarines. The break-up fee could cost Australian taxpayers up to A$400m ($290m), according to the Financial Review.

The EU is Australia’s thirdlargest trading partner, with the total trade in goods accounting for €36bn ($42bn ) last year, according to the commission. If Macron really wanted to make waves, he could try to block a pact being negotiated by the EU that could increase exports to Australia by up to a third.

Junior Europe minister and key Macron ally, Clement Beaune, alluded to that possibility when he told the France 24 news channel that France feels it can no longer trust Australia “and that could put in question other negotiations with the country.”

Australia’s trade minister Dan Tehan will meet French officials to try to ease tensions.

But, says Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, “the most likely scenario is limited responses and an inevitable adaptation of France’s IndoPacific strategy.”

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will meet his Indian counterpart at the UN General Assembly this week to discuss just that. On Friday, the two ministers had a phone conversation in which they agreed to deepen their strategic partnership, based on “political trust,” according to a French foreign ministry statement.

And even while it remains in Nato, France can still make life more difficult for members, one French official said, speaking on condition of anonymity and declining to elaborate.

The official said the submarine deal shows the UK cannot be trusted either, while Beaune accused Britain of returning to the “American lap.”

That means that Brexit negotiations over issues including fishing rights and market access for finance, as well as regulatory disputes over goods entering the Republic of Ireland could become a lot more tense.

WHAT HAS IRKED THE FRENCH IS THAT THEY WERE NOT INFORMED THE SUBMARINE DEAL WAS BEING HATCHED