Jay Weatherill receives briefing on Barracuda submarine features and secrets in France

PREMIER Jay Weatherill has dined with the French chief of navy on a nuclear-armed, bakery-equipped submarine, and received a briefing on the hi-tech features and secrets set for inclusion in Australia’s future fleet.

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PREMIER Jay Weatherill has dined with the French chief of navy on a nuclear-armed, bakery-equipped submarine, and received a briefing on the hi-tech features and secrets set for inclusion in Australia’s future fleet.

Immediately after touring the Cherbourg shipyards, where the French have been assembling subs for more than a century and are now building one which will form the template for Australia’s Shortfin Barracuda, Mr Weatherill was taken by private jet to visit the DCNS facility in Brest, where repairs and servicing are undertaken.

It included boarding and inspecting an ancestor of the Barracuda for a meal with the French Navy Chief of Staff Bernard Rogel and other high-ranking admirals.

Treasurer Scott Morrison told The Advertiser yesterday that France was the clear winner of an exhaustive process for the $50 billion Future Submarines deal. He called it a “very South Australian-centric opportunity”.

“From a Treasury point of view, the economic benefits of enabling — particularly in SA — the transformation and sustainment of our defence manufacturing industries is critical,” he said.

In France, the group dined just metres from nuclear warheads with the capacity to obliterate a large city. Australia’s future subs will be diesel-powered and not nuclear-armed.

A Barracuda Suffren class submarine under construction at the DCNS shipyards. Pic: AFP/DCNS

Mr Weatherill told The Advertiser was confident that SA and France together had the capability to build the most advanced submarines in the Asia Pacific.

“Cherbourg was about the construction, Brest was about the sustainment and maintenance and to see an actual submarine being prepared for its voyage,” he said.

“The French are determined that, not only can they do it in South Australia, but the whole purpose of their effort is to permit us to do it on our own by the conclusion of the contract. “They see this as transfer of technology and know-how to Australia so we have our own sovereign sub building, sustainment and maintenance capability.”

Mr Weatherill joked there may be some other modifications to the Australian Shortfin Barracuda submarines in addition to the removal of nuclear warheads.

“I’m not quite sure whether we’ll get the same standard of hospitality on an Australian submarine though,” he said. “The French do take their food very seriously.

“In fact, they have a bakery on board each of their subs.”

France is one of the biggest exporters of military hardware in the world, exporting a record $12 billion in arms per year and rising.

Premier Jay Weatherill speaks to the French Prefect of the Northern Seas, Admiral Philippe Ausseur, after a tour of the DCNS shipyard at Cherbour, France. Pic: Calum Robertson

It makes everything from ships, to subs and warplanes as well as torpedoes and advanced combat systems. DCNS boasts relationships with 50 navies around the world.

Mr Weatherill met French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian overnight on Saturday (Adelaide time), after seeing DCNS executives in Paris two days earlier.

The Premier came under fire from the State Opposition for heading away on the hastily organised trip, departing just 48 hours after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced at Techport that it would be the builder of 12 new French-designed subs.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls will today lead a delegation to Australia, and the SA State Government is in the early stages of planning a mass trade mission to France in July which would include business and community leaders.

SA Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said he may accept an invitation to attend a future state-led visit to France if he believed it could provide value to taxpayers.

Mr Weatherill said he believed the relationship forged between SA and France over submarines would last for decades and grow to cover all areas of culture.

“I asked the admirals what would be the message that they would send to the SA people if they were in my position, and they said that this should be seen as a dramatic act of friendship and a willingness to deepen the relationship between Australia and France and between SA and the regions that are producing this material,” he said.

“This is essentially the French people sharing their secrets with the Australian people.”

Admirals at the sub soiree were three-star Major General Jacques Cousquer, the director of Asia Pacific policy for French Defence and the four-star vice-admiral of marine forces Louis Michel Guillame.

Mr Weatherill separately met with the Ministry for Defence’s international relations and strategy director general Philippe Errera.