Cry me the Loire, Mr Macron, the French have form
President Emmanuel Macron is in high dudgeon over the Morrison government’s decision to cancel a contract for the purchase of 12 diesel-electric submarines from France. At the climate summit in Glasgow, he has been telling anyone who’ll listen that Scott Morrison is a lying liar who lies.
Cry me a river as long as the Loire, because the French have form when it comes to the arbitrary cancellation of weapons contracts. Even after money has been paid and the deal has been sealed.
In 1965, Jerusalem contracted with French naval shipbuilder CMN for the construction of six fast missile boats for the Israeli navy. This arms purchase was intended to counter the threat to Israel’s sea lanes posed by a fleet of Soviet missile boats supplied to Syria and Egypt.
But then, just before the outbreak of Israel’s defensive Six-Day War in 1967, president Charles de Gaulle decided to realign French foreign policy toward the Arab world. He declared an arms embargo on Israel and cancelled the sale of those missile boats, despite the fact they were paid for and almost completed.
So the Israelis went and “stole” them. Or, more accurately, they took possession of what was rightfully theirs. On Christmas Eve 1969, Mossad orchestrated a snatch operation in which Israeli naval personnel sailed the missile boats out of Cherbourg Harbour under the inebriated noses of French authorities. Four years later, those missile boats played a major role in the Israeli navy’s decisive victory during the Yom Kippur War in which 10 Syrian and Egyptian naval vessels were destroyed for no Israeli loss.
A similar example of French cupidity occurred a few years earlier when, without warning, de Gaulle decided to withdraw from NATO. The US ambassador to France was James Gavin, who commanded the storied 82nd Airborne Division during the liberation of France in 1944.
Summoned to the Elysee Palace, Gavin was told by de Gaulle that all US troops must leave French territory within the space of a few months. Gavin responded by asking: “Does that include our dead from the military cemeteries of Normandy?”
So you’ll excuse me if Macron’s sputtering indignation over the cancellation of the submarine deal leaves me unmoved. France’s own dodgy track record of betraying allies by breaking contracts makes its protestations ring hollow.
All the more so in view of Macron’s penchant for hurling prolific accusations of treachery. Morrison is just one world leader among many denounced by the French President as a peddler of falsehoods. Over the past two years, he has lodged similar insinuations against US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Turkey’s Recep Erdogan. In fact, Macron has used this tactic so often it seems to be his favourite tool in the French foreign policy toolbox.
The world is a dangerous place, where terrorists, thugs and tyrants interpret weakness as invitation. The most basic responsibility of any Australian government is to equip our defence force with the best weapons systems available. It was entirely legitimate for the Morrison cabinet to decide British or US nuclear submarines would provide more bang for our buck.
It’s unfortunate this shift of policy raised hackles in Paris, but that’s just the cost of doing the business of national defence. Despite Macron’s juvenile display of petulance, the only people to whom Morrison owes anything are the citizens of Australia.
With presidential elections due in April, it is in Macron’s electoral interest to play aggrieved defender of sullied French honour. Conservative firebrand Marine Le Pen is nipping at his heels in the opinion polls (he accused her of lying during the last election campaign in 2017). And the entry of wildcard Eric Zemmour into the race places Macron under even greater pressure from the political right wing.
It is thus in Macron’s electoral interest to play aggrieved defender of sullied French honour. The more bluster the better.
Australia would do well to see Macron’s peevishness as little more than posturing for political gain. Our most apposite response was perhaps best expressed by French national chanteuse Edith Piaf: “Non, je ne regrette rien.”
Ted Lapkin served as a ministerial adviser in the Abbott government.