France slams Australia over leaked Macron text message on submarine deal

By Shweta Desai

PARIS (AA) - France on Tuesday denounced the leaking of a text message that President Emmanuel Macron had sent to Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on a major submarine contract and warned of “reviewing bilateral relations.”

Macron’s office castigated Canberra over the "very inelegant method" in which the message was leaked to the press and said this will “impact on confidence between the two countries," the French news outlet BFMTV reported.

Australian media published the private text message by the French head of the state which implied that he already knew of the contract’s cancellation. Morrison has maintained that Paris was informed beforehand about the concerns of strategic capability in manufacturing the 12 submarines.

Macron’s text message, which was sent two days before the contract was announced to be passed on to the US under the new AUKUS trilateral security alliance between Australia, the US and the UK to defend the Indo-Pacific zone from China’s influence, asked: “Should I expect good or bad news for our common submarine ambitions?”

BFMTV quoted an Elysee palace source confirming the veracity of the text message and said it was sent by Macron out of concern over the mega million dollar contract. The report added that Australia never raised any question on changing the contract or doubted strategic capabilities, even when Morrison visited Paris in June.

French Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian underlined the “duplicity” in the bilateral relations between France and Australia.

Addressing the National Assembly, where Australia's reaction and the text message were discussed, Le Drian said Australia had shown a commitment to the submarine contract right until the end.

In a joint ministerial meeting on Aug. 30, Australia confirmed “the continuation of the submarine program," and on Sept. 15, the day the AUKUS alliance was announced, the French naval group received the satisfaction of the strategic review by Australian authorities on this program, he said.

Le Drian added that the French envoy has been asked to review relations.

“Our ambassador must review relations, very clearly, and ensure that we are extremely vigilant and rigorous about our interests," he said.

The axing of the deal created a diplomatic furor and a heated war of words between the leaders of the US, France and Australia. The crisis appeared to be receding after US President Joe Biden and Morrison met and spoke by phone respectively last month with Macron.

But the submarine dispute grew after Macron’s comment this week calling Morrison a liar for cancelling the $90 billion submarine contract at the last minute.