Proactive internment for all Americans of French descent or just suspiciously Frenchie names. Just to be sure they are not already cooperating with China.. They have to do this for domestic politics of course, sabre rattle to deflect anger from lost jobs. I expect they will produce the subs anyway just for a new EU military. They have their new barracuda class nuclear sub rolling out this year, making a few more seems the likely route. Of course space deployment is about to be a thing too.
Yeah, I don't get this. Their plutocrats are furious over the sub construction contracts & profits? Geopolitically it means nothing.
The French are just mad that their existing submarine deal with Australia has been cut -- this brouhaha is about nothing more than the money. "A diplomatic row broke out, with French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian accusing the Australians of a betrayal because the alliance meant they scrapped a multi-billion deal for France to provide subs." Angry French ambassador shows true colours by reminding Biden about naval victory over UK BREXIT Britain's newly forged defence deal with Australia and the US infuriated French Ambassador to America, Philippe Etienne, who took a bitter swipe at his transatlantic allies. https://www.express.co.uk/news/poli...ines-aukus-France-ambassador-Philippe-Etienne
So France failed to deliver and kept jacking up the price of the submarines it was supposed to deliver to Australia... now they whine when they get the boot. Budget overruns and culture clashes over long vacations plagued the $50 billion submarine deal France got booted from in favor of the US and UK https://news.yahoo.com/budget-overruns-culture-clashes-over-121033257.htm France's deal to build Australia's new submarines was dogged by years of problems. They came to a head this week when Australia ditched France and struck a deal with the UK and US. As costs ballooned, officials were "stunned" by the French taking a month vacation each summer. France received only a few hours' notice that Australia planned to cancel a $50 billion submarine contract with French shipbuilders, The New York Times reported, sparking fury in Paris. But the deal had been plagued for several years by culture clashes between the two countries as well as lengthy disputes over budgets. French officials were enraged this week after Australia announced it was cancelling a deal for French firm Naval Group to build its new fleet of submarines. Instead, Australia signed a security pact between the UK and US, under which Australia is due to build a generation of nuclear submarines, drawing on American and British expertise. While officials in France appeared blindsided by the move - with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian accusing Australia of a "stab in the back" - the deal had been on shaky ground almost since its inception in 2016. Extensive budget disputes that meant that the deal wasn't formally signed until 2019, three years after Australia announced its deal with France's Naval Group, in which the government is the majority shareholder. The project to replace Australia's aging Collins-class submarines was supposed to cost $36.5 billion, Politico reported, but the cost had nearly doubled by this year to an estimated $66 billion. The deal had been further complicated by Australia's insistence on Naval Group completing much of the construction work in Australia. When former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the deal in 2016, he said 90% of the construction work would take place within Australia and create 2,800 domestic jobs. By 2021, Naval Group had downgraded that figure to 60%, and had reportedly indicated that it could be downgraded further still, according to Politico. Culture clashes between Australian and French workforces were another sign of the shaky foundations of the deal. Naval Group in 2019 admitted that the two nations did not see eye-to-eye, and said it was designing courses for French expatriates in Australia so they could learn how to "behave, how to understand, and decode," ABC News Australia reported. An example of the gulf in working practices was when Australian officials were left "stunned" to hear discussion of "la rentrée," the process by which French workers would get ready to restart work after the whole company stopped working in August for a month-long vacation. French officials in return were likewise said to be surprised that Australian officials expected meetings to begin on time, citing a French phenomenon known as a "diplomatic 15 minutes" whereby people were considered to be on time as long as they arrived within 15 minutes of the start time. The report also mentioned French workers requesting more understanding of their need for long lunch breaks. While Australia has announced its decision to terminate the deal, it is not clear what the consequences of cancelling such a lucrative contract will be. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has challenged Australia to explain how it plans to exit the contracts it signed as part of the deal. "This is not over," he told the radio station Franceinfo on Thursday, Sky News reported. "We're going to need clarifications. We have contracts." Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has also not given details of how Australia plans to build its own fleet of submarines without Naval Group's involvement. He estimated this week that preparations for the project would take 18 months, the Guardian reported.
There’s a lot more going on with this French fau pas than just a big submarine contract and surprise surprise it involves Trump and China. The Euros are really not happy with inconsistent commitments coming from the US. Trump put them on their heels with that NATO stuff, cozying up to Russia and pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. The French see this deal with the Aussies as more of the same US undercutting commitments and inconsistencies, on top of the big loss. Now China is moving fast in the south sea, theyre building and stationing military assets on islands, theyre provocating tensions in Taiwan and they see our failure to build an economic block between Asian, us and South America economies as a weakness and they want to move in economically- you can thank idiot republicans for quashing the Trans Pacific Partnership which would be absolutely a game changer in today’s world: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive...lained-what-is-trans-pacific-partnership.html Now the euros like us do a lot of trade with the Chinese AND they are sour on the US right now and see the Chinese as a more stable power - which they are wrong - but they are all tied up in the Euro amd can’t break economic ties. So the US pivot into the pacific- which Biden is doing with end of Afghanistan- does not jive well with the European economic outlook. Remember they don’t have a pacific coast and the Chinese can serve as a Russian deterrent because the Chinese and Russians are actually starting play together nice - both have grasped onto the authoritarian > democracy narrative and are really selling it at home- again thanks to the dysfunctional American political system that produced trump and his supporters are characterized as Neanderthals in propaganda. https://thediplomat.com/2021/09/what-do-russians-think-about-the-relationship-with-china/ Anyway, we are moving to the pacific for defensive purposes. The middle East can and will go to hell but the bigger growing threat is from our west. The Euros don’t have that threat and the Chinese can help with Russia. So we are looking to not only the Aussies- who are fucking bad ass MFerz who have fought side to side with us in every major conflict since WWII but also the Japanese, who understand they will be turning back on their military and the South Koreans who are embroiled in their own instability. So this is bigger than subs and escargot. We will need to rehash a version of TPP, we will need to get Southeast Asia organized. The good news is this will benefit the Aussies the most. They will become major power brokers in the pacific simply via locale. They know they have to build up militarily and economically to keep the Chinese at bay. So yes subs, the French are pissed but the real reason why they are snubbing us is the larger geopolitical shift and the economic and diplomatic ties with the Chinese.
So what was wrong with the French submarines rejected by Australia? Pretty much everything. Why Australia wanted out of its French submarine deal Canberra has signaled for months it was seeking to walk away over cost blowouts and delays. https://www.politico.eu/article/why-australia-wanted-out-of-its-french-sub-deal/
France is doing everything it can to show its anger at a cancelled $50 billion submarine contract, shocking officials in the US, UK, and Australia https://www.businessinsider.com/france-shows-anger-over-submarine-snub-shocks-us-uk-australia-2021-9 French fury towards the US and other allies has taken many in Washington by surprise. France is furious after Australia canceled a lucrative submarine contract with a French firm. Biden aides are said to believe Paris overreacted and will resume normal relations. The level of French fury towards the US and Australia over a canceled submarine contract has surprised officials in Washington. France recalled its ambassadors to both countries and accused the two powers of "lying" to its officials, a dramatic and public rebuke to nations is generally treats as close allies. "There has been lying, duplicity, a major breach of trust and contempt. This will not do," French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France 2 on Saturday. It came after he called the ambassadors to France and Australia back to Paris at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron — one of the most severe diplomatic snubs possible. France had never recalled its Australian or US ambassadors before, Le Drian said. The move "shows the magnitude of the crisis that exists now between our countries," he concluded. The UK, which he called a "third wheel" in the situation, did not see an ambassador recalled. Australia announced last week that it was terminating a $50 billion contract with French-owned firm Naval Group to build its new fleet of submarines. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the new fleet of nuclear-powered vessels would now be built domestically with help from the US and UK. While the Biden administration had been bracing for a negative reaction from France to the move, aides were surprised by the ferocity with which France reacted, The New York Times reported. Aides told the Times that they were particularly surprised by Le Drian's claim that the move was a "knife [or stab] in the back" — a remarkably forthright comment in the usually measured world of diplomacy. In the short term, France's anger looks unlikely to abate. The loss of such a lucrative deal represents a significant financial blow to the French state, which is Naval Group's majority shareholder. More importantly, President Macron saw its submarine deal with Australia as a way to bolster France's influence in the Indo-Pacific region, where he sees China as a growing threat.
Well of course there are not a lot of choices in the region. The New Zealanders are wokesters in regard to nuclear subs and will not allow them in their waters or their ports- from any country. Of course no one is depending on New Zealand to protect them from anything so they might as well be woke. The Tibetans are woke too. But then again the Chinese occupy their country and destroyed culture so there is that.
For a guy the loons call "China Joe", Biden does not appear to be making much nice with the Chinese at all.