France calls on Europeans to stop relying on the US for protection

France believes that the episode of the crisis between France and Washington over the cancellation of a submarine contract to be purchased by Australia should make other European countries realise that they cannot rely on the United States to continue to protect them.

"Our European partners must open their eyes" to the fact that "we can no longer count on the United States to guarantee our strategic protection", Bruno Le Maire, a heavyweight in President Emmanuel Macron's government and Minister of Economy and Finance, stressed on Thursday.

In an interview with France Info, he insisted that "the first lesson to be learned from this episode is that the European Union must build its strategic independence".

In his opinion, "it is a mistake" to believe, as Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen did, that the United States will continue to protect Europeans under any circumstances.

"If tomorrow there is a massive problem of illegal immigration, if there is a problem of terrorism coming from the African continent, who will protect us? Only us. We can only count on ourselves.

According to the analysis of the French economy and finance minister, the United States "has only one strategic concern, which is China and containing China's growing power". In this context, "its allies have to be docile".

Behind it all is the cancellation by Australia on the 15th of the purchase of twelve French conventional submarines (a contract worth 31 billion euros at the time of signing in 2016 and now valued at around 56 billion) to replace them with US nuclear ones, which has generated an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between the three countries.

Macron spoke to US President Joe Biden by phone on Wednesday to defuse the tension and announced the return to Washington of his ambassador, whom he had recalled for consultations to express his anger.

Le Maire affirmed that, although this step towards conciliation has been taken, this type of dispute "always leaves traces because a brutal decision was taken".

According to Pierre-Éric Pommellet, CEO of the French state-owned Naval Group, which builds the submarines, the announcement came as a complete surprise, as they had received an email on the morning of the 15th informing them that the Australian government had agreed to a number of technical issues in order to move on to a new phase of the contract.

In an interview published on Thursday by Le Figaro newspaper, Pommellet insists that Australia's decision was "a political and strategic one", and that Naval Group has no responsibility for it.

He also explains that in a few weeks they will present Australia with the invoice for the costs that the company or its industrial partners had already incurred or committed to, as stipulated in the contract, and warns that they will assert their rights.

The sale would cost Naval Group some 500 million euros a year for the next few years, around 10 % of its turnover. This directly affects 650 of its employees in France. It also affects several dozen in other associated companies, as well as 350 workers in its subsidiary in Australia.