I’m French, France sounds ready to put up a stink, but I have difficulty understanding who is right.
I guess Australia is building submarines in preparation to keep China within their waters. So the contract (even though it’s already signed) should come back to the nation that is least under Chinese dominance:
- Australia itself is deeply impregnated of Chinese spies, currently focussing on busting Chinese citizens evaded in Australia,
- USA has chosen the president who had the most ties to China,
- While UK banned Huawei products notably for national routers, France has signed a historic major partnership with Huawei, which is suspected of being the main reification of the Chinese’s secret services.
Whatever the Australians are trying to buy submarines for, I don’t think they can be isolated from the enemy they are supposed to fight.
The problem from a French point of view is a breach of trust from close allies. The problem is not that they made a collaboration agreement, and the breach of contract by itself could be worked out (this sort of things happen all the time). More annoying is that they did it behind France’s collective back, keeping them in the dark to the last moment even though diplomatic relations with Australia were considered excellent and those with the US re-normalising after Trump.
Also, France has some difficulties making the rest of the EU understand the urgency of the situation, and would have probably seized the opportunity for cooperation in the Pacific if given the chance, as they have quite large territories there, unlike any other European country.
Also also, this is a political victory for Boris Johnson who probably cannot believe his luck and is going to be a pain in the arse of everybody else in Europe for quite a few years.
So Australia and the US are right to work something out (China certainly is menacing). The U.K. is completely useless in this as usual. They should have done it better, though, and excluding France even though they clearly have aligned interests and are supposed to be close allies is not great.