Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull paved the way for Australia to renegotiate the French submarine contract when Labor came to power, but there was silence from the new government.
Already a subscriber?The Albanese government was told only a month after it came to power that the door was open to reviving the partnership for France to build Attack-class submarines, including nuclear-powered ones if Australia so wanted.
That led not only to a crisis in Australia-France relations, but also serious tensions in the relationship between Paris and Washington. France recalled its US ambassador. Diplomatic contact between Australian and French officials froze. And Macron later publicly accused Morrison of deceit.’s “Questioning AUKUS” series, which revealed then prime minister Morrison’s claims to have been frustrated by delays and supposed cost blowouts on the French contract.
Turnbull met with Macron and his chief Asia adviser, Walid Fouque, at the Elysee Palace on June 22, 2022. During that same visit, he also met with two senior officials at France’s foreign ministry, the Quai D’Orsay. They were Philippe Errera, Director-General for Political Affairs and Security, and Bertrand Lortholary, then head of the ministry’s Asia division. Lortholary is now France’s ambassador to China.
“Nevertheless, I encouraged Albanese to look at restarting the Attack-class program with France and I encouraged the French to make it available again despite being double-crossed earlier.” It was about “creating an option for the new government to rectify the mistake Morrison had made in cancelling the French contract”, Turnbull said.
The suggestion is that once France’s Naval Group had delivered its last nuclear-powered Suffren-class submarine to the French navy in 2030, it could have then continued the production line to build six or eight nuclear-powered boats for Australia. Had Canberra opted to go nuclear with the French, Australia could have had its first nuclear boat by the mid-2030s.
While a strong supporter of AUKUS Pillar 2, dealing with technology co-operation, Turnbull does not believe AUKUS Pillar 1 will deliver Australia a nuclear-powered submarine of its own any time soon, if ever.“The US Navy is about 20 SSNs short of what it believes it needs, its submarine industrial base is producing about half as many submarines as their navy wants and the threat from China is increasing.
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