French President Emmanuel Macron launches torpedo at AUKUS pact

The French President has sought to undermine the AUKUS pact, declaring Australia’s nuclear submarine deal with the US and UK ‘will not deliver’.

French President Emmanuel Macron in Bangkok on Friday. Picture: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron has sought to undermine the AUKUS pact just five months after he and Anthony Albanese patched up relations between their countries, declaring Australia’s nuclear submarine deal with the US and UK “will not deliver”.

Mr Macron on Friday mounted a second attack on the partnership on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Bangkok, a day after warning Australia’s submarine plans risked provoking a nuclear conflict with China.

The French President remains furious at Scott Morrison for ­cancelling Australia’s $90bn contract for French-designed conventional subs, saying in Bangkok on Thursday that the former prime minister had provoked China’s anger with the nuclear submarine plan, threatening a “nuclear confrontation”.

The Prime Minister rejected Mr Macron's anti-AUKUS comments, declaring Australia was sticking with its cornerstone ­national security strategy with the United States and Britain.

“We are proceeding with the AUKUS arrangements. There’s nothing ambiguous about it. That is our position,” Mr Albanese said in Bangkok.

Mr Macron, who said this week France remained open to providing Australia with conventional submarines, told Bloomberg the AUKUS nuclear boats sent “a big signal of distress for us” and would leave Australia with unreliable military supply chains.

“What we decided in 2015 together is how to build submarines for Australian people, in Australia, for Australian industry, to build Australian sovereignty, and to have non-nuclear submarines that you can restore, repair and use,” Mr Macron said on Friday.

“What the AUKUS deal is about is how to make nuclear ­submarines elsewhere, with other people.”

The French President added that Australia needed to “define its Indo-­Pacific strategy”.

Deputy Opposition Leader Sussan Ley accused Mr Albanese of using “weasel words” in brushing aside Mr Macron’s comments and demanded the Prime Minister “launch a strident defence of AUKUS”. Ms Ley said the French President’s comment went beyond an attack on Mr Morrison.

Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok on Friday. Picture: Getty Images

“Make no mistake – the comments made are a stinging rebuke of AUKUS itself,” she said.

“Taking selfies and nice pictures is really easy on the world stage but what’s harder is robustly standing up for Australia’s national interest.”

The French President’s comments will alarm the government as it seeks to reassure the global community that the AUKUS subs will not undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Mr Albanese met on the sidelines of the APEC forum with US Vice President Kamala Harris, condemning a North Korean ­intercontinental ballistic missile launch in joint talks with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Canada and New Zealand.

The Prime Minister joined calls at the meeting for an ­emergency session of the UN ­Security Council to deal with the crisis. “This is recklessly threatening our security. It’s destabilising our region and, in particular, it’s causing trauma for the people of Japan and the Republic of Korea,” Mr Albanese said.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the launch was ­“utterly unacceptable”.

“In order for the complete … ­denuclearisation of North Korea in accordance with the UN Security Council resolutions, the international community must respond in unity,” Mr Kishida said.

Mr Albanese’s attendance at APEC follows his participation in ASEAN, the East Asia Summit and G20 leaders’ talks this week. After a flurry of bilateral meetings at consecutive summits this week, including long-awaited talks with China’s President Xi Jinping, he declared: “Australia’s is back. We’re back around the table.”

Earlier this week, Mr Albanese told US President Joe Biden and Britain’s newly installed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that the trilateral AUKUS pact was at the heart of Australia’s national security strategy.

Anthony Albanese in Bangkok on Friday. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Albanese and Mr Macron agreed to strengthen defence co-operation during a bilateral meeting on Wednesday at the G20 Summit in Bali.

But French defence giants are currently under pressure over ­contracts with the Australian Defence Force, with Airbus lobbying the government not to axe the ADF’s troubled French utility helicopters, and the discovery of brake problems on Australia’s $2bn fleet of French-made Hawkei tactical vehicles.

Mr Albanese and Mr Macron formally reset the Australia-France relationship in June, after the cancellation of the Attack-class submarines shredded trust between the countries. The Prime Minister said Australia and France had “a very co-operative relationship”, and he and Mr Macron were determined to work together on key strategic issues.

He noted that the Bushmaster vehicles Australia was supplying to Ukraine were made in Bendigo by French armaments giant Thales.

“We have a good, cooperative relationship and we’ll continue to engage on ways in which France can assist Australia in the road map that we agreed on when we met in Paris, which is about defence and security, it’s about energy and the environment, including dealing with climate change, and it’s about cultural advances as well,” Mr Albanese said.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris at the APEC summit in Bangkok on Friday. Picture: Getty Images

Former prime minister Tony Abbott said Mr Macron’s attack on AUKUS was “an extraordinary double standard” from a country with a nuclear submarine fleet.

“It’s OK for France to have ­nuclear-powered submarines, but somehow if Australia gets nuclear submarines, that’s a threat to global peace,” Mr Abbott told Sky News. “It was a pretty bizarre statement from someone who still seems to be suffering sour grapes over the fact that France was really not able to get us what we needed on time and on budget.”