Leaking a macro message exacerbates relations between France and Australia / Article

On Tuesday, the oil was put on fire by Australian media, which published private correspondence between the two leaders. It can be inferred that Macron knew about the failure of the transaction earlier than claimed.

A deal worth billions of euros

Australia, along with the United States and Britain, announced on 15 September on the establishment of a strategic partnership India and the Pacific to counter China’s growing influence in the region. The agreement stipulates that Australia will be able to to build nuclear fuel submarinesusing American and British technology.

Consequently, the agreement with France on the purchase of ordinary submarines is no longer valid for Australia. The value of the agreement between Canberra and Paris in 2016 was more than 30 billion euros.

Australian action thoroughly angered France, whose government claimed that it had not been informed of the Australian decision to terminate the agreement. French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Sunday that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had lied to him about plans to acquire American and British nuclear submarine technology.

Broken trust

However, several Australian newspapers reported on Tuesday that Macron had sent a text message to Morrison two days before the announcement of the termination of the submarine sales contract, asking if good or bad news about the submarine deal was expected. The media did not publish Morrison’s response.

The Elysee Palace criticizes the leak of correspondence between the two leaders. An unnamed Macron administration official told Le Parisien that this was completely unacceptable and had undermined any trust between France and Australia. Macron’s subordinate added that the idea of ​​disclosing private correspondence with another country’s leader would never have occurred to the French president.

Another French government official told AFP that the text of the text message confirmed Macron’s uncertainty about the future of the submarine deal.

France considers that the text message was deliberately leaked

The French are convinced that Macron’s text message has been leaked to the media to take revenge on the French president for his insults to Morrison.

The Australian prime minister has said he will not respond to personal insults: These insults – I will not allow them to come over Australia. I will deal with personal insults. “

In Australia, the opposition Labor Party has accused Morrison of deteriorating relations with the Allies in the name of personal political interests. Labor believes the prime minister should simply admit that he could have done better on the submarine deal with France.

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