If French President Emmanuel Macron is to be believed, his country is a good friend to Australia. So good in fact he feels he can stick his Gallic nose into our affairs and publicly lecture us on defence policy. According to him, we would be acting provocatively if we acquire nuclear-powered submarines as planned.
You will be relieved to know he is motivated solely by concerns for our security. The good news is that everything will be OK if we go back to the original plan of paying the French $90bn to build a fleet of conventional submarines. That way we will not upset China.
“The choice made by [former] prime minister [Scott] Morrison was the opposite,” Macron gratuitously postulated last week in Bangkok, referring to the previous government’s decision to form AUKUS along with the United States and Britain. It was a case of Australia “re-entering into nuclear confrontation” and becoming “completely dependent” in commissioning a “submarine fleet that the Australians are incapable of producing and maintaining in-house”, he said.
Lo and behold, China’s state-owed Global Times favourably noted Macron’s criticism, saying in an editorial he “was trying to remind Australia” that conventional submarines are a “better option”. AUKUS, it said, “undermines Australia’s sovereignty and serves to provoke China”. To summarise, Frog and Panda are firmly in accord about what Australia should not be allowed to do defence-wise.
Macron’s advice should not be dismissed out of hand. After all, if there is one aspect of military affairs in which the French are par excellence, it is avoiding confrontation. Rather than countering Beijing’s expansionism we should not do anything hostile, at least overtly. For example, we could follow France’s lead and secretly plant a bomb on a civilian protest vessel harboured in a friendly country.
Marcon’s outburst was that of a peace poseur, and his hypocrisy writ large. To begin with, France possesses five nuclear attack submarines (SSNs). The most recent of these to enter service, the Suffren, can launch cruise missiles capable of hitting a target up to 1000km away. In addition, the French Navy also boasts four nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). Conversely, Australia will have eight SSNs, none of which – unlike the French boomers – will be armed with nuclear warheads.
As for Marcon’s sudden concerns about Beijing’s sensibilities, that is rich. Just last year then armed forces minister Florence Parly proudly announced the French SSN Emeraude had successfully concluded a passage of the South China Sea. This was, she said, a mission to “enrich our knowledge of this area and to affirm that international law is the only rule that is valid, whatever the sea in which we sail”. A sea of double standards, you might say.
These facts should have been put to Macron in the form of a public rebuke. But when asked about his criticism, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese could only lamely remark with a feeble grin that the president was “entitled to put forward the views he does in a very forthright way”. Why the weak response, especially when the subject concerns a challenge to our sovereign rights?
Answer: someone is embarrassed at the realisation he has been played for a fool. When this issue blew up last year, the opposition, under Albanese, abandoned the longstanding rule that international disputes concerning national security warranted cautious bipartisanship. Unquestionably and opportunistically, Labor sided with Macron.
When Morrison defended himself following Marcon’s denunciation, Albanese bizarrely accused him of “gaslighting” the president. And to think just last week at the G20 summit Albanese told journalists of Labor’s “mature” approach to foreign affairs, saying “We need to not try to score domestic political points in our international relations”.
Then shadow foreign affairs minister Penny Wong even compared Morrison to former US president Donald Trump. “It is vandalism, the way in which this has been dealt with by the government,” she said. “It is a wanton disregard for our international reputation.”
Praising Macron, then climate change minister Chris Bowen cited “national interest” in spruiking for the French. “It’s shocking that Australian foreign policy and his clumsy handling has got us in this situation,” he said, “because he [Morrison] is fundamentally dishonest in everything he does”.
When the new Prime Minister made an official visit to France this year, his hands were clasped firmly on his lapels as he boasted of the rectified relationship. “There have been some difficulties and that is true,” he told a meeting of France’s peak employer federation, the Movement of the Enterprises of France. “I resolved those difficulties on May 21.”
Speaking at the Élysée Palace, Albanese marvelled at his great rapprochement. “My presence here following the invitation of the president represents a new start for our countries’ relationship,” he said. “Trust, respect, and honesty matters.”
So too does ingratiating oneself with foreign leaders at taxpayer expense, evidently. Under the terms of the contract, the French government majority-owned Naval Group was entitled to $136m if the Defence department elected not to go ahead with the submarine deal. Feeling generous, the Albanese government paid the organisation a whopping $835m. Why the largesse given the previous government had lawfully terminated the contract?
For all his animus towards the former prime minister, Macron has all but vindicated Morrison for his belated notification that Australia no longer wished to do business. As the president’s recent behaviour has shown, Morrison knew Paris would have done its utmost to sabotage AUKUS before the pact could be announced.
His successor did everything to duchess Macron only to be duped himself. But give Macron his due, for he is simply treating his Australian counterpart with the respect due one who sides against his own country for political expediency.
It is an uncomfortable bed Albanese has made for himself. Only now has he discovered that the French could not give a sheet.
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