Breaking: France recalls its ambassador to the U.S. in protest of Biden's submarine deal with Aus.

[JoanofArgh]

France announced on Friday that it is immediately recalling its ambassador to the United States, Philippe Étienne, in protest of President Biden’s announcement of an agreement to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia without consulting French officials.

In a statement, the French foreign minister said the decision was made by French President Emmanuel Macron.

“At the request of the President of the Republic, I have decided to immediately recall our two ambassadors to the United States and Australia to Paris for consultations,” Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister said. “This exceptional decision is justified by the exceptional gravity of the announcements made on 15 September by Australia and the United States.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/france-ambassador-recall-us-australia.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210917&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta&regi_id=72416910&segment_id=69255&user_id=20a86bb77f8705e060212c90659bdb01

[lagomorph777]

1. I assume our position is that it's needed to help reign in China's aggressive moves.

We'll work this out. I'm sure France doesn't need any surprises in that region either.

[jpak]

2. Time for more Freedom Fries

The French have a perfect right to be pissed.

But

The best French diesel-electric boats cannot hold a candle to US or UK Virginia or Astute class nuclear attack subs.

Beijing is even more pissed.

Just sayin..

[ripcord]

3. Australia wanted to contribute more to the QUAD

Nuclear subs are faster, quieter and are more efficient since they can stay out longer.

[TheRealNorth]

10. I understand that some of the newer diesels can be pretty quiet too

I remember reading a couple of articles about the Swedish submarine HSMS Gotland theoretically sinking a US Carrier in wargames.

But as you said, they still can't run underwater as long as the nuclear boats.

There may be other advantages in terms of maintenance and logistics if the alliance uses similar or the same equipment.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

11. Diesels can be quieter at certain times

My limited understanding is diesel subs can be quieter than nuclear subs when they are running fully on electric power. The reason is that nuclear subs need to constantly circulate coolant through their cores and, as far as I know, the reactors never shut down unless they are back at port for maintenance.

[Celerity]

16. Gotland-class submarine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotland-class_submarine



Deployments

After being refitted and upgraded to sustain the higher temperatures of tropical water, HSwMS Halland took part in a multi-national exercise in the Mediterranean from September 16, 2000. Allegedly, there she remained undetected while still recording many of her friendly adversaries, attracting interest from the participating countries. In early November the same year, she participated in a NATO "blue-water" exercise in the Atlantic. There, she reportedly won a victory in a mock "duel" with Spanish naval units, and then the same in similar duel against a French SSN, a nuclear-powered attack submarine. She also "defeated" an American SSN, the USS Houston.

Secondment to United States Navy

In 2004, the Swedish government received a request from the United States to lease HSwMS Gotland – Swedish-flagged, commanded and manned, for a duration of one year for use in antisubmarine warfare exercises. The Swedish government granted this request in October 2004, with both navies signing a memorandum of understanding on 21 March 2005. The lease was extended for another 12 months in 2006. In July 2007, HSwMS Gotland departed San Diego for Sweden.

In 2005, HSwMS Gotland managed to snap several pictures of USS Ronald Reagan during a wargaming exercise in the Pacific Ocean, effectively "sinking" the aircraft carrier. The exercise was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the US fleet against diesel-electric submarines, which some have noted as severely lacking. In 2001, during the exercise JTFEX 01-2 in the Caribbean Sea, the German U24 of the conventional 206 diesel-electric class "sank" the carrier Enterprise by firing flares and taking a photograph through its periscope.

[edhopper]

4. They are pissed they lost a big

MIC contract. Would conferring with them before the announcement changed anything?

[JohnSJ]

6. Yup, they had a deal with Australia, and we undercut them.

[roamer65]

5. Brilliant counter move by the Chinese.

They play a long game.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/17/economy/china-cptpp-application-intl-hnk/index.html

Applying to join the CPTPP that Dump abandoned.

We play checkers, but the Chinese play chess.

[DFW]

7. If the Chinese had been building military bases near Guadeloupe or Martinique, on the other hand....

Macron would have been demanding to know why Australia got such high priority over France.

Le monde, c'est l'État français, et l'état, c'est moi.

[Marius25]

9. I wish we'd stop screwing over our allies so much.

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

12. Since when do we have to clear our moves with France first? Anybody?

[JI7]

15. They are one of our closest allies

[Shanti Shanti Shanti]

17. We are both global weapons exporters, they were selling conventional subs, we offered nuclear

Australia chose what they wanted in their best interest, sorry France

[trof]

13. We fucked up.

What were our diplomats thinking?
We have deeply offended one of our staunchest allies.
And cut deeply into their defense budget.
Stupid.

[Hortensis]

18. Why assume that? What is FRANCE thinking? We announced a new

three-way security partnership between U.S., Australia and UK, and as part of that the relationship between Australia and France was altered and the submarine deal cancelled. Australia seemingly gave France only a few hours' official notice, and I haven't read why or how France may have contributed to this situation.

But we'd already had big plans for various alliances to keep today's very aggressive China from controlling the Pacific and dozens of nations on it. Our participation was/is extremely important to the security of those nations. France, not a Pacific nation, knew this. Those alliances were interrupted when the depraved orange clown was elected. France knew this too. Now we're resuming our strategy, after some extremely costly trump-engineered setbacks, and this occurs in that context.

Btw, know who else is angry about this? China.