Aukus fallout: France’s Macron says Australia PM Morrison lied to him about submarine deal
- Relations sour between French president and Morrison over Australia’s submarine pact with US and UK
- Macron and UK PM Johnson also set for collision during Glasgow climate talks over fishing spat
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French President Emmanuel Macron said Australia’s prime minister outright lied to him over a cancelled submarine deal, deepening an already fraught diplomatic crisis.
“I don’t think. I know,” Macron said on Sunday when asked by Australian media if Scott Morrison was untruthful in their private dealings.
Both leaders were attending the G20 in Rome and a major UN-backed climate summit in Glasgow, but the weeks-long spat continues to trail them.
In September, Australia’s leader without warning tore up a decade-old multibillion dollar contract with France to build a new fleet of submarines.
At the same time, Morrison revealed he had been in secret talks to acquire US or British nuclear subs.
Furious, Paris denounced the decision as a “stab in the back” and recalled its ambassador, who is only now getting back to work Down Under.
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Australian media asked Macron on the sidelines of the G20 summit whether he thought the Australian leader had been untruthful to him in private meetings.
The French president left little doubt about his view, stressing the need for mutual “respect”.
“You have to behave in line and consistently with this value,” he said.
Macron crossed paths with Morrison at the G20, and spoke on the phone earlier last week, telling him that a “relationship of trust” had been broken between France and Australia.
The pair were yet to sit down for formal talks, although the French ambassador was set to meet Australia’s foreign minister in Sydney on Monday.
“We have no better ally than France,” Biden said.
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Morrison on Sunday defended his behaviour, refuting Macron’s view and denying that he lied to the French leader at a private meeting in June.
“I don’t agree with that,” he said. “It’s not true.”
“We had dinner together. As I’ve said on numerous occasions, I explained very clearly that the conventional submarine option was not going to meet Australia’s interests,” Morrison said.
“I’m quite conscious of the disappointment that’s there. And I’m not surprised – it was a significant contract. And so I’m not surprised about the level of disappointment.”
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Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce urged France to view the matter in perspective.
“We didn’t steal an island, we didn’t deface the Eiffel Tower. It was a contract,” Joyce said on Monday.
“Contracts have terms and conditions, and one of those terms and conditions and propositions is that you might get out of the contract.”
Macron and the UK’s Boris Johnson were also heading for a full frontal confrontation that will bleed into the UN climate summit.
The French government on Tuesday was set to introduce additional controls on goods moving across its border with the UK and block British fishing boats from unloading their catches in France in retaliation for what it sees as unjustified restrictions on French trawlers.
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Johnson, as host of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, is aiming to lock in firmer commitments on cutting carbon emissions. Johnson has said it will be “extremely tough” to secure meaningful pledges from the world’s major emitters in Glasgow and the talks in Rome over the weekend offered little encouragement.
French trade sanctions on the UK were to coincide with the leaders’ final day in Glasgow – right when Johnson would be aiming to pin down a deal.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg and Reuters
