“A knife in the back,” Mr. Le Drian said of the Australian decision, noting that Australia was rejecting a deal for a strategic partnership that involved “a lot of technological transfers and a contract for a 50-year period.”
Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, did not even mention France in the videoconference with Mr. Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, during which the deal was announced Wednesday. Nor was France consulted on the Australian about-face and the new agreement. “We heard about it yesterday,” Ms. Parly told RFI radio.
“This looks like a new geopolitical order without binding alliances,” Nicole Bacharan, an expert on French-American relations, said. “To confront China, the United States appears to have chosen a different alliance, with the Anglo-Saxon world confronting France.” She predicted a “very hard” period in the old friendship between Paris and Washington.
Mr. Biden said the deal was “about investing in our source of strength, our alliances, and updating them.” At least with respect to France, one of America’s oldest allies, that claim appeared to have backfired.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/16/world/europe/france-australia-uk-us-submarines.html
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