A spokesman for the French defence ministry has hit back on Twitter against the AUKUS submarine deal between the USA, Australia and the UK. It's fascinating to see the other side of the argument. The French are clearly very angry, having withdrawn their ambassadors from Washington and Canberra, and you can see why. The Twitter thread may be an odd way of communicating their displeasure but it does however put quite a different light on the whole thing.
Porte-parole du ministère des Armées (@HerveGrandjean) describes himself a the Spokesperson of Ministry for the Armed Forces and his thread begins here:
In the last few days, everything and its opposite has been said about the Australian submarine contract. The safety of Australians and the performance of our industrialists deserve better than peremptory statements. A #thread to better understand the Australian submarine affair.
— Porte-parole du ministère des Armées (@HerveGrandjean) September 21, 2021
They claim that a 2009 Australian white paper had declared "The Government has ruled out nuclear propulsion for these submarines" but now the Aussies seems to have done a volte face on this and not with France, who have nuclear powered submarines of their own and presumably could have supplied the technology themselves, but with the USA.
Next, they raise the question of how the boats will be constructed and maintained in Australia without a home grown nuclear industry, something the Aussies specifically didn't want, either civilian nor military - at least in 2009. The September 17 announcement suggested that the nuclear submarines will be built in Australia but this may prove a hard political sell at home.,
The French ask if the USA are going to supply complete nuclear boiler rooms together with the staff and facilities to maintain them in the future based permanently on Australian soil. If so, the cost might be very high.
And this is perhaps what stings the most in Paris, apparently on the same day as the AUKUS announcement was made, the Australians wrote to France to say that they were "satisfied with the submarine's achievable performance and with the progress of the program." In short, the project was going forward to launching the next phase of the contract as planned. On the same day!! It is the sheer duplicity that hurts.
In addition, the cost of the nuclear powered but conventionally armed submarines, called SSNs are likely to cost "much more." The spokesperson says according to a June 2021 Congressional Research Service report, the production costs of the last two Virginia SSNs ordered (35th and 36th) would be $6.91 billion, or $3.46 billion per unit (€2.95 billion). Much more expensive than a French Barracuda class boat.
And presumably there will now be cancellation costs as well as a writing off of all the costs which have been paid so far - including the relocation of 80 Australian naval staff to France along with their families.
Plus, while admitting a nuclear powered sub has "greater projection capability than a conventional submarine" meaning I assume it can be larger, travel further and stay submerged for longer, they say the planned tonnage of the SM Attack boats being designed (between 5,000 and 6,000 tonnes) was "large enough to provide the projection capability required for Australian naval operations."
The also say the diesel powered subs were quieter in silent running operations because on nuclear engines you need to have permanent cooling system operating to keep the reactor safe.
The new deal will provide a delay of ten years say the French. The first diesel powered submarines were to be delivered by France by 2030 but now with this new AUKUS partnership, "it will be more like 2040. That's a long time, when you see how fast China is militarizing."
Reading the thread is informative and shows I think that the French are right to be angry. We have upset China (no bad thing some will say) and the prospect of a UK-China trade deal looks out of the question now, upset France and the EU (the German ambassador has already backed Paris) and made progress on improving the NI protocol less likely.
We have not got a UK-US trade deal and likely won't get much out of the AUKUS deal. In other words it has all been for very little.
This story has a long way to go yet.
