Deceitful sub deal raises risks, says French envoy to Australia

PARIS: France’s ambassador to Australia says Australian officials lied to his face and raised the risk of confrontation in Asia by crafting a secret submarine deal with the United States and Britain that undermined trust in democratic alliances.

France is determined to protect its interests in the Indo-Pacific region, and to put “muscle” into Europe’s geopolitical strategy toward an increasingly assertive China, Ambassador Jean-Pierre Thebault said late on Friday.

“The way you treat your allies does resonate in the region,” Thebault said in a gilded chamber inside the French Foreign Ministry, located on the banks of the Seine River in Paris. “The logic of confrontation is not a good one for the peace and stability of the region. We think that we should act otherwise.”

The French government recalled Thebault to Paris last month along with the French ambassador to the US. The unprecedented diplomatic move reflected the depth of France’s anger at an agreement for Australia to obtain a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines built with US technology.

The Indo-Pacific deal, concealed from French officials, scuppered a previous $66 billion contract for Australia to buy 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines from a French manufacturer.

Apart from the ruptured contract, France thinks the deal trampled longstanding alliances, and its interests in the Pacific – where it has 2 million citizens in French territories and 7,000 military troops – were ignored.

“I don’t understand how it was possible to commit such a lie. I don’t understand how people, several of whom I know, were capable of lying to me...face to face for 18 months,” Thebault said of the Australian officials he worked with.

The ambassador noted that France makes nuclear-powered submarines, and he said Australia refused them when their deal was first struck in 2016, opting for diesel-powered versions instead.

“You could at least have...had a frank and honest conversation, which never happened,” he said.

“Rebuffing a country like France is almost sending a message that there are trusted partners and other partners, which is worrying in a region which needs...partnership and not antagonism,” Thebault said.

So France is turning to other “trusted partners in the region,” he said – naming India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand.