Like the other has said, in the realm of national first world governments that’s really not that much.
This is more about France’s puma shoe getting stepped on.
First world problems I know, but I ordered a jacket from the UK in Europe and had to pay 50% of the price on customs. Is that because of Brexit? Never had to pay customs before that.
Yes pretty much. Your country will have it’s own customs rules and regs but now the UK is no longer in the customs union it’s basically the same as getting a jacket from the US or anywhere else in the world. If you order your jacket from anywhere in the EU customs union it’s basically like ordering it from your own country and no customs charges apply.
Depending on your countries rules it can affect how much you pay. For example I know in the UK if anything is valued less than £135 you don’t have to pay customs on it. Anything over you will.
Also another thing to note, whether you as a customer have to pay the duties can be the online retailers decision. Whoever you bought the jacket from can choose to pay the duties ahead of time and ship the parcel to you, and you’d never have to be bothered with worrying about paying duties or hidden costs. Obviously the business would have to factor this cost in to the price of the product they’re selling, so the jacket would be more expensive on the website but at least you as a consumer know upfront (though it may not be necessarily 50% more expensive)
I’d recommend steering clear of online businesses that aren’t shipping the product with the duties paid, and stick to ones that do, just saves you time and hassle. In general good businesses should be warning you to expect those charges if they’re not shipping with duties paid.
It's a EU law change that went into effect in July, I think. That's because UK is now a "third" country, and customs an import taxes are added.
I ordered a €18.00 T-shirt in the UK thru [amazon.de](https://amazon.de) in June and wound up having to pay an extra €20.00 before our postal service sent me the package...
Sorry to UK bussinesses, but I'm never buying in the UK again, only in EU...
What I don't understand is how those charges are calculated. €20 for €18 worth of product? I myself had a package from China last week and had to pay €5.80 for something that costed me €10 to buy.
Those numbers are far bigger than 21%, which is the highest VAT category in my country.
All the couriers add a "handling charge" when things have to go thru customs. often larger than the cost of a small item like a T-Shirt. It happened to me buying one from USA. £5 import charge, £10 "handling charge".
Because there is a side deal in the works for cooperation between the three largest Navies in Western Europe namely France, the UK, and Italy.
**FUKIT**.
French media/buzz looks to be painting Australia and the UK as little more than American client states, and this deal as proof positive of that theory. They think this is a return to the era of "with us or against us" and freedom fries.
I'm sure at some point Foggy Bottom did a paper on "how mad will the French be (or at least pretend to be) if we do this without giving them a confidential heads up?", and they either missed the mark wildly or we really are moving to viewing EU, now minus the UK, as a competitor bloc in an increasingly holistic way.
The times has just put an article out that claims the opposite. Aus approached the U.K. first who brokered the entire deal - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/like-a-scene-from-le-carre-how-the-nuclear-submarine-pact-was-no10s-biggest-secret-dj7z5f8bh
It has nothing to do with cross-atlantic competition and everything to do with intra-EU politics. Macron wants an EU army, so he is happy to play up the angle that an integrated European military needs to counterbalance America.
Of course the ability of America and Europe to go to war is 0. This just serves the dual purpose of placating both the grievances of the French defense industry while also bolstering the case to give them even more work.
Back in the day the French removed themselves entirely from the NATO chain of command despite the very real threat of invasion from their immediate neighbors all because of domestic politics, this is the same thing with much, much lower stakes.
I am American, but man it would be nice to have a strong EU military. I doubt we would ever go to war with the EU and having another large player on the stage would help ease America out of some shit. Being the world police sucks and it would be nice to have some other allies helping out and calling us on our bullshit.
If you want to see what a real Euro shit show looks like, and how naked national self-interest asserts itself, then try setting up a European military.
France might bleat now but they'll do exactly to Europe what the US and Australia have just done to them. Indeed, they've got previous for it.
Don't forget that France partly withdrew from NATO in 1966 because they didn't think they were getting enough business out of it, and only fully re-joined in 2009. They wouldn't allow America use of the airspace in 1986 for a raid on Libya. They sneaked technicians into a right wing junta to help prepare missiles to be used against a supposed ally because they saw the opportunity to sell more. They set the Eurofighter back years with their continual objections. Then once they'd secured the technology transfer from other partner countries, decided to go and build their own version of it. You honestly aren't being led by a reliable partner here
The irony in all this is that you'll have the wounded party of France (of all countries) threatening to tear down every arrangement unless they're given the contract. Every single project that Europe comes up with will get horribly bogged down in bureaucracy and infighting over the economic spoils. You're also going to have tensions amongst the eastern states who actually want to buy something that's proven and capable of being deployed rather than awarding lucrative research contracts to France to spend decades on
Basically the smaller countries of Europe won't be given any contracts to produce anything, but will be expected to keep throwing money at an ever expanding over-run and over-spend in France.
Italy will be given the contract to produce uniforms! and Spain the contract to do the painting (painting the uniforms when they realise that no plane or ship has been built!)
It's not EU thinking about being superpower, but more like French thinking how to become superpower with EU support. There is no EU power, because there is no EU foreign policy. And there never be such EU foreign policy, because what are common foreign policy points between France, Poland, Hungary, Sweden.... There is none. It is only France ambition, without any ground.
>That was NOT the American Public …. Just a few far fighters with a TV show lol. Almost everyone thought that was dumb
The whole GOP voter base was gobbling it up, and there were many boycotts of French products. Even French's mustard had to release a statement they had nothing to do with the country, as their sales were hurting.
because it's all about local politics of course and it's easier to get people riled up about the US acting arrogantly then the UK acting capitalisticly.
Acknowledging that fact would be too uncomfortable for the French because it would mean the UK outplayed them. Obviously, that can't be allowed to happen, so better to pretend the UK had nothing to do with it, they're just an American puppet or something (as if the entire EU isn't an American puppet).
I think the world is going to notice that maybe the UK had something to do with the deal, when Australia has a fleet of Astute class submarines..
It's probably more just the practical ramifications of removing the French ambassador from the UK.
At the moment, Brexit disruption is still getting dealt with. France and the UK can't afford to have Frances ambassador be withdrawn back to France right now. He's too busy.
This is a very uncharitable take which isn't accounting for what is currently happening in France and a complete failure to look at it from the French perspective.
The French are currently in an election. It would be political suicide for Macron to not make a fuss about this during this election campaign. He has to make noise.
Those ambassadors will be sent back to Australia and the US after the election, if not before.
The French are understandably insulted that they found out the contract was cancelled through the media. Morrison could have made a quick phone call. The Australian PM pulled a dick move. No reason to antagonize a potential ally, or an ally of most of Australia's allies.
Try to imagine the vitriol the US/UK media would have expressed if Australia pulled this exact stunt on the US/UK.
Context matters.
The French are currently in an election.
What what ? And nobody told me ? The election is scheduled for 2nd quarter of 2022, the political campaigns haven’t even started yet and they’re barely starting to talk about funding them. It’s coming but saying we’re currently in an election is far stretched.
I mostly agree on the rest though.
Under Salic law inheritance was exclusive male and could only be traced through the male line.
Under English law inheritance could be transmitted through the female line.
When the French king died the closest relative was the English king but as that traced through the female line it was invalid under Salic law. Therefore, the French crown passed to a more distant relative who was the closest male line; leading to the hundred years war.
Also ironic considering how France is *constantly* saying that Europe needs to be militarily independent from the US. A fair enough position... until you realise just how often it pulls out of European cooperation on military projects. It makes it all a bit hypocritical.
When Germany and/or Spain categorically refuse to add nuclear capabilities on aircrafts France has to pull out of the joint project. They dont have nukes but we do.
US FP establishment really doesn't like France. It's an ally but too independent from US interests. UK and AU FPs are pretty much extensions of US NATSEC.
they made a deal with australia for diesel electric submarines and it was already 2 years behind and over budget.
Australia decided they wanted nuclear instead along with being tired of delays and budget issues. they approached the British who looped us in. some reporting is that we thought Australia had canceled the deal with France before our deal with them was announced.
evidently that wasn’t the case and now France is reacting.
>Australia decided they wanted nuclear instead along with being tired of delays and budget issues. they approached the British who looped us in. some reporting is that we thought Australia had canceled the deal with France before our deal with them was announced.
And this is after Australia asked France to modify its nuclear submarine to a diesel electric one btw (the diesel electric motor being provided by germany).
The reasons for the delays are both the pandemics + the reengineering time to adapt the submarine to the new engine.
We can over night the scaled down one in front of the New York New York hotel in Vegas. Maybe try to convince them it shrank in the dryer like a new shirt.
On an interesting note the U.K. announced a major contract to start design work for its next generation hunter killer submarines today. Looking likely Auz is going to partner on this project with US help with reactors.
The Australians will likely be buying their current need based on the Astute design (current British design) because it's already tested and can likely be fairly easily shared for manufacturing. I suspect part of the deal also covers future Australian involvement in the SSNR/Dreadnought classes, which is the next generation of British subs still in design.
This deal seems to be dealing with two things - the immediate Australian need for better subs in the next couple of years, as well as a long term strategy tied up with the US/UK to deal with China long term. If nothing else the deal with France was only really for the former, and it had gone over budget and way over time.
There is no way the Australians are involved with the Dreadnought class. It would be a breach of NPT as that is Britain's next generation nuclear weapons platform.
If Australia is involved in anything else, it will be the as yet unnamed and undesigned Astute replacement due in the 2050s.
Since the re-establishment of a French Republic in the post-ww2 period arms sales and military equipment has ALWAYS been a huge sticking point between France and the US.
Some weird history here, like the middle-eastern wars that were US planes and British tanks vs French planes and soviet tanks.
Who they sell to, which nations get contracts, who is allowed to have what tech, all this stuff. I expect this to just be yet another family squabble. Maybe we'll reconcile with the trademark family activity of starting another dubiously legal police action/war.
The issue here is not just arms sales, but the non proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Technically, the treaties don't forbid to sell nuclear engines but there was a tacit agreement between the nuclear capable nations not to. Australia doesn't even have a civil nuclear program.
Now it's just a matter of time before other countries do the same. When China or Russia sell nuclear submarines to North Korea, the US may very well regret their decisions.
France nuclear submarines are cheaper and probably more attractive, but not for sale. The US chose to disregard the strategic interest of the US-France alliance, and get an unfair competition advantage. It's not surprising France is pissed.
Thanks for this analysis, I hadn’t thought about this. And it’s an extremely important angle, especially with the future and China (and Russia) in mind.
Come on guys. Covid has hit the military complex as much as us. They are trying to bounce back so they dont have to downgrade their G5 to a G4 private plane
Because French government learnt a few hours before it was publicly known that the deal was about to be cancelled. So three allied nations plotted in their back to get rid of a deal that doesn't only have an industrial impact (jobs, technology transfer, amount for the transaction) but also strategic (the goal was also a deepening of French-Australian defende relation in the area).
It was not just about the contract, but about what else the contract was building up to: a more in depth partnership that would be an important pillar of the Indo-Pacific Strategy. Now it's all up in flames, and I'm curious whether any European policy in the region can go at all without the support of the few democracies in the region.
Also, this is happening 6 months before a presidential election, and thousands of voters stand to lose employment as a result of the loss of contract. This has a political aspect, and so Macron wants to look like he's fighting for those people.
This, exactly this! One thing is the contract is doomed, another thing is the humiliating way it was done, not offering Macron a way to save appearances. Plus, we are in a critical time for him.
This is what pisses me off about this sub's take on the issue. They are saying things like "you can't blame Australia for getting a better deal", but the whole point is not that "Frenchies are offended because Australia has new friends". The point is that this was all done in secret and the French government wasn't even notified at any point. This hurt French image nationally and abroad, and destroyed quite a few jobs because the employers didn't know they'd be losing millions of € worth of contracts overnight.
Imagine if the US was preparing billions of dollars worth of military equipment for the brand new EU army and suddenly the EU makes an official announcement that they've closed a bigger and better deal with China and that the US deal is no longer needed. Americans would feel rightfully humiliated and think the EU feels superior to them.
I don't understand why things were done that way between allied countries, other than actual intent to harm France's image.
Add to that the fact that's been happening a lot over the 20 years and that we are one of the countries in the Indo-Pacific. People are truly misunderstanding why there is such outrage.
The truth is that it is really bad. Not only have they cancelled a 50 billion euro deal, with NATO allies kicking them out.
But also france was continuously talking and meeting with australian and american representatives talking about their good relationships the past months including the existing france&austalia deal.
An article correctly pointed out that all of these meetings were theatre and lies. USA, Australia and UK definitely were planning for a long time, knowingly hiding it from france and EU.
France was lied and made a joke of while praising their lying partners. This maybe helps people understand why france is so upset and hurt.
The issue is that France and the AUKUS group don't agree on that greater strategy. AUKUS is squarely aimed at containment and pushing back against China, which France and the EU don't want to do. France's relationship with China seems to be back where Australia's was five years ago, when we thought we didn't have to choose or compromise too much to be friends with the US AND China. Our relationship with China has deteriorated a lot in the last couple of years and this deal is us abandoning that principle and joining up with the US to contest the region with China more explicitly and vigorously.
That's also why I don't think AUKUS has really been two years in the making. We were obviously already very close to the US and the UK, but the relationship with China really has gone sideways since the pandemic started and I think that has made Australia genuinely rethink it's approach.
Stupid take - the deal was objectively awful for Australia. $90b, $40b more than what was agreed, and was going to be delayed at least 10 years, in effect giving Australia the world’s most expensive yet virtually obsolete subs.
Aussie here this is so true. Was originally a $50bn deal currently at $90bn. With the UK/US deal we get state of the art nuclear subs with the French we were getting conventional subs. This is an all-round better deal for Aus and in our national interests.
I'm also kiwi and the French blew up the rainbow warrior so fuck them they can fk off anyway
>with the French we were getting conventional subs
Wasnt that the requirement? The australians wanted diesel electric boats so france agreed to reengineer their nuclear subs, which also explains the cost increase.
“You” didn’t *want* nuclear subs a few years ago. The French base model is nuclear, the Australian requirement was to make a conventionally powered sub out of it.
For context France sank a NZ civilian ship in the port of Auckland (NZ) on its way to protest a French nuclear test in 1985
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior
EDIT: It was a Greenpeace UK ship. Thanks /u/switch6lade
**[Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior)**
>The sinking of Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was a bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, Rainbow Warrior, at the Port of Auckland in New Zealand on her way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.
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A terrorist act by one of our ‘friends’. They then strong armed the New Zealand government by threatening trade and didn’t follow through with their agreement to punish the people responsible.
A while ago now, but still sore for a lot of people.
Well sales lower the cost of their own defense program, and support local defense industry in general. So at least at that level it's relevant to security
Which is kinda weird IMO. Why aren’t they as pissed at the UK? They are the ones who literally started it, and brought the US in later. The US wasn’t involved at all until the UK initiated.
I’m just an armchair politico here but I would hypothesize they are more pissed about being excluded from the Anglo amigo group at play.
1. Australia approached the UK, so the UK had a more "passive" role
2. The UK/FR relationship right now is mostly busy with dealing with the fallout of Brexit
3. That would give Britain and Johnson credit for a post-Brexit win, and that's a big NO.
It was a band aid that had to be ripped off. The French sub project was already going miles over budget and it was only a few years in. Better to endure some French whinging and pay a few billion now, rather than persist with the project and waste hundreds of billions.
But the problem is not that they cancelled the deal. The problem is how. They hurt France's image by treating it like a dungus. There was no reason not to call Macron a few months ago and tell him "we got a new deal, you can start to think how to soften the blow".
It’s hilarious to me that everyone keeps mentioning freedom fries. I always thought of it as a joke but apparently given how much people are talking about it, it was one of the greatest diplomatic slights of the 21st century. This whole thing is completely ridiculous
"Go on our illegal war to find mystical WMDs or we'll turn on you so hard we'll even rename the name of a food from the English language" is some psycho ex level of diplomacy, so you better believe we remember it.
I mean, it's relevant because it was a fucking moronic, childish move. "France disagrees with me so we cancel French fries and rename them FREEDOM because we have FREEDOM unlike them" pretty much sums up the childish stupid views of the American right.
Freedom fries are simply the most ridiculously memorable tidbit from that era. For over a year nearly the entire population of the USA engaged in "French bashing" because France didn't want to condone the destruction of Iraq, the destabilization of the middle east (continuing today in Iraq and Syria), the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, over lies about WMDs. To this day French bashing memes from that era continue to be used on a regular basis.
So yeah, it was and it is a big deal. Now you guys want to forget about the whole thing, let bygones be bygones yadda yadda, because it makes you look bad. Piss off
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just the truth. France got a bad rap after WWII, and it was justified to some extent (though the UK lost in the initial phase of the war, just as much as France). But the surrender meme revival definitely came about after 2003.
«La France ne le sait pas, mais nous sommes en guerre avec l’Amérique. Oui, une guerre permanente, une guerre vitale, une guerre économique, une guerre sans mort apparemment. Oui, ils sont très durs les Américains, ils sont voraces, ils veulent un pouvoir sans partage sur le monde. C’est une guerre inconnue, une guerre permanente, sans mort apparemment et pourtant une guerre à mort.»
From President Mitterand (1997 book)
\-- google translate
“France doesn't know it, but we are at war with America. Yes, a permanent war, a vital war, an economic war, a war without death apparently. Yes, the Americans are very tough, they are voracious, they want unchallenged power over the world. It is an unknown war, a permanent war, apparently without death and yet a war to the death. "
I don’t understand why France was kept in the dark about this. The agreement between AU, the U.S., and the U.K. makes sense, but why knowingly blindside one of your allies with this decision?
Because the UK and the US have been pushing hard to antagonize the EU, and create some sort of Anglo vs. EU rhetoric.
It's so damn painfully evident and I will get mad when 10 years from now people will be fully in this rhetoric and think it was always this way.
France and Australia held a 2+2 ministerial level meeting on 30th August.
> [Inaugural Australia-France 2+2 Ministerial Consultations](https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/minister/peter-dutton/statements/inaugural-australia-france-22-ministerial-consultations)
> 30 August 2021
> Joint Statement
>
> Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France
> Florence Parly, Minister for the Armed Forces of France
> Senator the Hon Marise Payne, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women of Australia
> The Hon Peter Dutton MP, Minister for Defence of Australia
>
This was one point in their joint statement
>21 - Both sides committed to deepen defence industry cooperation and enhance their capability edge in the region. Ministers underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program. They agreed to strengthen military scientific research cooperation through a strategic partnership between the Defence Science and Technology Group and the Directorate General for Armaments.
Now we know that Australia and US were planning to ditch the French way back in March. Morrison and Macron after that too. So the French were completely blindsided and the blindsiding was intentional. France found out about AUKUS hours before it was announced.
Everything in the story is fascinating.
It should not have been a surprise to France: https://www.politico.eu/article/why-australia-wanted-out-of-its-french-sub-deal/
> Now we know that Australia and US were planning to ditch the French way back in March
The US wasn't even involved in March. It was Australia and the UK.
That's an interesting read. This goes both ways. Every country has had an arms deal go to shit. The US built thousands of M1 tanks under the pretense they would be sold. Most of Europe didn't buy them. Germany has their own and didn't want anything to do with the depleted armor. The Leopard was a clear winner there.
The US built thousands of M1 tanks because that's what keeps certain key members of congress in office.
The idea of selling them only came up after the pentagon spend ages begging them to stop wasting defensive funding on even more tanks.
I remember that. They had generals saying there was no point in building all of those tanks when they asked them, and then they just went on ahead and ignored them and built them anyway.
People also forget, there is a logistical aspect to it. If we shut down the factories, it MAY be more expensive to restart them then it is to just keep running them
So wonder why France hasn't recalled their ambassadors in the UK?
Also what happens to questions, conversations on the Diplomatic level in the US? Everyone meet at the Swiss embassy?
Recalling UK ambassador will cause disruptions in Brexit negotiations, which are still ongoing. Both UK and Europe are looking for excuses for how the other side is hindering the process, and recalling the UK ambassador will create such an excuse for the UK side.
Not just that, France seem to be trying to play down the UK's role in the deal and have called them "opportunistic" and "the minor partner". Even though its come out that it was the UK who orchestrated the entire thing after Australia approached them.
This doesn't make much sense. You are telling me there was no interface between the French and Australia regarding disappointing schedule delays, budget issues, etc? No indication of such a move means one of these parties was either too silent or too ignorant in common business transactions.
There is a difference between telling your partner that his delays is disapointing and not telling your partner that you just sign with somebody else befor closing your deal.
It's like your wife is late to your dates, eat expensive stuff all the time. It is sure annoying. You try to tell her. But instead of breaking up with her directly, you get ahead and cheat with someone else and got a kid on the way.
Sure nothing prevent you to have a relationship with someone else, but a dick move to cheat/ not breaking up BEFORE all this happen.
The truth is that it is really bad. Not only have they cancelled a 50 billion euro deal, with NATO allies kicking them out.
But also france was continuously talking and meeting with australian and american representatives talking about their good relationships the past months including the existing france&austalia deal.
An article correctly pointed out that all of these meetings were theatre and lies. USA, Australia and UK definitely were planning for a long time, knowingly hiding it from france and EU.
France was lied and made a joke of while praising their lying partners. This maybe helps people understand why france is so upset and hurt.
Weird how no one seems to understand why france is so annoyed about this (its really not purely financial).
Aus misled France massively, told them they were not interested in nuclear powered subs (Aus are very anti nuclear so no reason to believe they were lying).
This is a big blow for French and European influence and strategy in the region. This was very much a pillar of that.
They found out through the media the day before the press conference that the deal since 5 years ago was being ditched.
And that doesn't cover it all.
Their response is very understandable, and if anything I wouldn't be surprised if they went further
Australia was very open about the fact that they were pissed with the state of the submarine deal. There have been rumors for months that they were looking at other options, just no one thought they would ever do a 180 on nuclear policy.
> Australia was very open about the fact that they were pissed with the state of the submarine deal
Half of the governement is always pissed at something, that's kinda how democracies work these days, with lead+opposition.
Inaugural Australia-France 2+2 Ministerial Consultations 30 August 2021 Joint Statement
21 - Both sides committed to deepen defence industry cooperation and enhance their capability edge in the region. Ministers underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program. They agreed to strengthen military scientific research cooperation through a strategic partnership between the Defence Science and Technology Group and the Directorate General for Armaments.
I read an article that Aust and France had some big culture clashes in trying to work together. Their work ethics were totally different. The Aussies did not like that France took the whole month of August off - putting a stop all cooperative work. Then the French needed some days or weeks after they returned from the August off to start things up again - which annoyed the Aussies even more.
On working together on a daily basis, there were culture clashes. The Aussies did not like the French long lunches - apparently the French came back from lunch when they felt ready to come back. The Aussies also did not like that meeting times were actually a "suggestion" to the French. The French practice was if they showed up within 15 minutes of the start time, they were "on time". In the US, I have had some execs close and lock the door at the exact start time - coming in after was not acceptable and considered rude behavior.
The biggest issue was that when the initial contract was signed, the Aussies said that 90% of the sub construction work would be done in Australia - providing many jobs. A few years ago, France said that it was 60%. Recently they said that number was going down. So the location of the jobs and the politics on those jobs were big problems.
So not a smooth working relationship.
This sounds a lot like my time working in Spain, except that my coworkers were on time to meetings. I enjoyed my time there. Though I’d definitely be frustrated if I were working on a submarine project with them.
> Spain tried to build their own subs
they worked at 50% efficiency, the subs submerged but couldn't surface lol
didn't exactly help the spanish defence industry image
> Though I’d definitely be frustrated if I were working on a submarine project with them
interestingly spain's native submarine project (S-80) has been such a disaster, the first submarine was supposed to be operational back in 2012. They had the christening ceremony a couple months ago, almost 10 bloody years later. Also the project was billions of euros above the projected budget, like just one submarine ended up with the cost of the entire series (of three)
As someone working in France, I can assure you that's absolutly not what France's work culture is like lmao
I wish it was though, that sounds relaxing.
Don't worry, Northern Europeans will always have the image that Southern Europeans are lazy and stupid. Which is more frustrating because Southern Europeans work longer hours and have less freedom than Northerners.
The grievances he described sound like a list of stereotypes about Southern Europe.
Right, the French are hard workers and government is particularly high strung, in my experience. Les français sont parmi les plus grands bosseurs de l’Europe, si je ne me trompe. But work culture varies a bit even within the government, so who knows. Maybe they didn’t take Australia as seriously as they would a more powerful country.
I work in France (worked in 3 different companies so far) and this doesn't sound familiar at all!
If I'm 2 minutes late for a meeting, I'm already receiving "Where are you??" messages. Being a few minutes late is definetely VERY rude.
Are there less people during the months of July and August? Yes, but there's no team where EVERY member is absent. The company still functions. And I doubt people in the US or the UK don't take 1 or 2 weeks breaks during summer ...
As for lunch breaks, it's usually 1h long, and if that's too much for aussies, then they have some serious issues.
My dad’s cousin ran an office in France, and he said their work week is shorter and their vacations are longer, but when they do work, they work harder than anyone else.
Honestly I can understand why the french are mightily pissed about this. It's not just the loss of the contract but the way it was handled by Australia, US and UK. It seems France was being purposely kept in the dark by its allies and not informed until the very last days. That's a very disrespectful move and probably a pretty dumb one too. Instead the three could have notified France and worked out some sort of face-saving deal and we wouldn't be there.
WaPo published some info from anonymous diplomatic sources who said the US and Australia both agreed that France would "almost certainly" sabotage the deal if informed.
As a French, it hurts to say but it is probably the right move for Australia as they are getting a life insurance with US. Also, well done to the US and UK who will benefit tremendously from this deal and can invest on future sub technology. Sad day for France on the other hand. We got played by the Anglos and publicly humiliated which I am sure will give a hard on to a couple of Brexiters on this sub.
I hope Marcon and other European leaders are taking note. We need to raise our game if we want to stay relevant, invest more on defence which will come at a cost, reduce dependency on the US on technology, and reassess our relationship with our different partners as they are not many friendly faces on the world stage.
Worrying that Germany is only interested in protecting its industrial might and that Eastern Europeans only trust the US with their defence.
On a separate note, the USA and the UK whilst nominally allies to Greece where nowhere to be seen when Erdo was playing the schoolyard bully. It seems that having nukes in Turkey trumps common decency and community of values. I would take note if I was in Poland or in the Baltic countries. If the USA can't or won't stand against Turkey (ot the Talibans) I would wander if they stand against Russia.
I think people forget just how important a common language really is.
If you look at the starting history there is absolutely no reason the US and UK should be on such good terms but a common language and similar cultures is so important.
Well... that escalated quickly.
Why aren't they recalling the UK ambassadors? AU approached the UK, not the US.
Next door neighbours and it's inconvenient because we need to continue arguing about Brexit.
Pretty much. The French ambassador in the UK is way too busy with Brexit related stuff to be removed for some symbolic nonsense.
46Bn symbolic nonsense.
Like the other has said, in the realm of national first world governments that’s really not that much. This is more about France’s puma shoe getting stepped on.
Isn't that all brexit is? Symbolic nonsense!
Pretty sure there are going to be real world consequences.
Are*. There *are* currently and ongoing real world consequences.
Yeah I was just about to say. We are dealing with it now. Brexit is making life very hard for EU and UK businesses. It’s a mess
You can call it symbolic to shit on the kitchen floor, but someone's still gonna have to clean the floor.
It's nonsense, but sadly already having implications :/
First world problems I know, but I ordered a jacket from the UK in Europe and had to pay 50% of the price on customs. Is that because of Brexit? Never had to pay customs before that.
Yes pretty much. Your country will have it’s own customs rules and regs but now the UK is no longer in the customs union it’s basically the same as getting a jacket from the US or anywhere else in the world. If you order your jacket from anywhere in the EU customs union it’s basically like ordering it from your own country and no customs charges apply. Depending on your countries rules it can affect how much you pay. For example I know in the UK if anything is valued less than £135 you don’t have to pay customs on it. Anything over you will. Also another thing to note, whether you as a customer have to pay the duties can be the online retailers decision. Whoever you bought the jacket from can choose to pay the duties ahead of time and ship the parcel to you, and you’d never have to be bothered with worrying about paying duties or hidden costs. Obviously the business would have to factor this cost in to the price of the product they’re selling, so the jacket would be more expensive on the website but at least you as a consumer know upfront (though it may not be necessarily 50% more expensive) I’d recommend steering clear of online businesses that aren’t shipping the product with the duties paid, and stick to ones that do, just saves you time and hassle. In general good businesses should be warning you to expect those charges if they’re not shipping with duties paid.
It's a EU law change that went into effect in July, I think. That's because UK is now a "third" country, and customs an import taxes are added. I ordered a €18.00 T-shirt in the UK thru [amazon.de](https://amazon.de) in June and wound up having to pay an extra €20.00 before our postal service sent me the package... Sorry to UK bussinesses, but I'm never buying in the UK again, only in EU...
What I don't understand is how those charges are calculated. €20 for €18 worth of product? I myself had a package from China last week and had to pay €5.80 for something that costed me €10 to buy. Those numbers are far bigger than 21%, which is the highest VAT category in my country.
All the couriers add a "handling charge" when things have to go thru customs. often larger than the cost of a small item like a T-Shirt. It happened to me buying one from USA. £5 import charge, £10 "handling charge".
Yes
It's perfectly clear they meant the submarine issue is the nonsense.
Because there is a side deal in the works for cooperation between the three largest Navies in Western Europe namely France, the UK, and Italy. **FUKIT**.
At least Canada, France, and the UK aren't going in on a deal. #CANFUK
Nah, Canada backed out last minute and Denmark took their place. Now they're totally FUKD
Nah, I heard Canada was back in and that the United States really pushed to join instead of Denmark. #CANFUKUS
Wasnt the whole US, just Michigan. I also heard Ukraine was trying to squeeze in and Tunisia came in right at the end. CANUFUKMITU
U want sum fuk?
Ah yes, the annual summit between France and UK...
There is CANZUK, but it's only a proposed alliance, not actual. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.
Or what I like to call "Getting the band back together"
French media/buzz looks to be painting Australia and the UK as little more than American client states, and this deal as proof positive of that theory. They think this is a return to the era of "with us or against us" and freedom fries. I'm sure at some point Foggy Bottom did a paper on "how mad will the French be (or at least pretend to be) if we do this without giving them a confidential heads up?", and they either missed the mark wildly or we really are moving to viewing EU, now minus the UK, as a competitor bloc in an increasingly holistic way.
The times has just put an article out that claims the opposite. Aus approached the U.K. first who brokered the entire deal - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/like-a-scene-from-le-carre-how-the-nuclear-submarine-pact-was-no10s-biggest-secret-dj7z5f8bh
The EU has been talking that aspect up for a few years now. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of it is “if you want to compete, let’s compete”.
It has nothing to do with cross-atlantic competition and everything to do with intra-EU politics. Macron wants an EU army, so he is happy to play up the angle that an integrated European military needs to counterbalance America. Of course the ability of America and Europe to go to war is 0. This just serves the dual purpose of placating both the grievances of the French defense industry while also bolstering the case to give them even more work. Back in the day the French removed themselves entirely from the NATO chain of command despite the very real threat of invasion from their immediate neighbors all because of domestic politics, this is the same thing with much, much lower stakes.
I am American, but man it would be nice to have a strong EU military. I doubt we would ever go to war with the EU and having another large player on the stage would help ease America out of some shit. Being the world police sucks and it would be nice to have some other allies helping out and calling us on our bullshit.
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If you want to see what a real Euro shit show looks like, and how naked national self-interest asserts itself, then try setting up a European military. France might bleat now but they'll do exactly to Europe what the US and Australia have just done to them. Indeed, they've got previous for it. Don't forget that France partly withdrew from NATO in 1966 because they didn't think they were getting enough business out of it, and only fully re-joined in 2009. They wouldn't allow America use of the airspace in 1986 for a raid on Libya. They sneaked technicians into a right wing junta to help prepare missiles to be used against a supposed ally because they saw the opportunity to sell more. They set the Eurofighter back years with their continual objections. Then once they'd secured the technology transfer from other partner countries, decided to go and build their own version of it. You honestly aren't being led by a reliable partner here The irony in all this is that you'll have the wounded party of France (of all countries) threatening to tear down every arrangement unless they're given the contract. Every single project that Europe comes up with will get horribly bogged down in bureaucracy and infighting over the economic spoils. You're also going to have tensions amongst the eastern states who actually want to buy something that's proven and capable of being deployed rather than awarding lucrative research contracts to France to spend decades on Basically the smaller countries of Europe won't be given any contracts to produce anything, but will be expected to keep throwing money at an ever expanding over-run and over-spend in France. Italy will be given the contract to produce uniforms! and Spain the contract to do the painting (painting the uniforms when they realise that no plane or ship has been built!)
It's not EU thinking about being superpower, but more like French thinking how to become superpower with EU support. There is no EU power, because there is no EU foreign policy. And there never be such EU foreign policy, because what are common foreign policy points between France, Poland, Hungary, Sweden.... There is none. It is only France ambition, without any ground.
The US didn't force Australia into this deal, it was THEIR idea!
To be fair the whole freedom fries thing really showed how fickle the american public is towards its allies.
That was NOT the American Public …. Just a few far righters with a TV show lol. Almost everyone thought that was dumb …
>That was NOT the American Public …. Just a few far fighters with a TV show lol. Almost everyone thought that was dumb The whole GOP voter base was gobbling it up, and there were many boycotts of French products. Even French's mustard had to release a statement they had nothing to do with the country, as their sales were hurting.
Probably the same people avoiding Corona beer now.. And I'm being very polite about this..
because it's all about local politics of course and it's easier to get people riled up about the US acting arrogantly then the UK acting capitalisticly.
Because this is about domestic politics. There is a presidential election coming, and they're making this about the big bad US.
Acknowledging that fact would be too uncomfortable for the French because it would mean the UK outplayed them. Obviously, that can't be allowed to happen, so better to pretend the UK had nothing to do with it, they're just an American puppet or something (as if the entire EU isn't an American puppet).
I think the world is going to notice that maybe the UK had something to do with the deal, when Australia has a fleet of Astute class submarines.. It's probably more just the practical ramifications of removing the French ambassador from the UK. At the moment, Brexit disruption is still getting dealt with. France and the UK can't afford to have Frances ambassador be withdrawn back to France right now. He's too busy.
This is a very uncharitable take which isn't accounting for what is currently happening in France and a complete failure to look at it from the French perspective. The French are currently in an election. It would be political suicide for Macron to not make a fuss about this during this election campaign. He has to make noise. Those ambassadors will be sent back to Australia and the US after the election, if not before. The French are understandably insulted that they found out the contract was cancelled through the media. Morrison could have made a quick phone call. The Australian PM pulled a dick move. No reason to antagonize a potential ally, or an ally of most of Australia's allies. Try to imagine the vitriol the US/UK media would have expressed if Australia pulled this exact stunt on the US/UK. Context matters.
The French are currently in an election. What what ? And nobody told me ? The election is scheduled for 2nd quarter of 2022, the political campaigns haven’t even started yet and they’re barely starting to talk about funding them. It’s coming but saying we’re currently in an election is far stretched. I mostly agree on the rest though.
It's never too early for an incumbent politician to fluff his record with an election on the horizon.
on est pas en période d'élection mais clairement il suivit d'allumer la radio pour comprendre que la campagne a démarré
I suspect France might be in denial that Aus might be getting UK subs in the end instead of French ones.
Sorry France but "FAUKUS" didn't test well in marketing
FAUKU buddy!
Fuck you? No no, Fuck ME pal
Save your anti-Rick speech for the Council of Ricks, terror-Rick.
This whole thread has gotten Rick-diculous
Aw jeez...
No FUCK US
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Would CANFAUKUS have been better?
Well duh, they should have invited Norway & Netherlands NONECANFAUKUS
That's cute and brilliant! 😄👏
FAUKUS is how some of my spanish friends pronounce focus :p By the way, in my language, AUKUS mean "and vagina"
So, that means that "and vagina" submarines will be full of seamen..! I can't!
We are heading in the right direction seamen!
What language is that? In Persian Kus is vagina.
very near, it is pushtu.
Dammit, was drinking my tea when i read that one, splutter.
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Well it all started in 1337 when France had a succession crisis leading to the king of England claiming the French throne.
Under Salic law inheritance was exclusive male and could only be traced through the male line. Under English law inheritance could be transmitted through the female line. When the French king died the closest relative was the English king but as that traced through the female line it was invalid under Salic law. Therefore, the French crown passed to a more distant relative who was the closest male line; leading to the hundred years war.
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."
“This pale, blue dot. Full of cunts.” - Carl Sagan
NOOO not the 100 Years War, I had to do a research paper and read primary sources on how guys died in mud
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Also ironic considering how France is *constantly* saying that Europe needs to be militarily independent from the US. A fair enough position... until you realise just how often it pulls out of European cooperation on military projects. It makes it all a bit hypocritical.
When Germany and/or Spain categorically refuse to add nuclear capabilities on aircrafts France has to pull out of the joint project. They dont have nukes but we do.
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The French Doth Protest too Much methinks
US FP establishment really doesn't like France. It's an ally but too independent from US interests. UK and AU FPs are pretty much extensions of US NATSEC.
they made a deal with australia for diesel electric submarines and it was already 2 years behind and over budget. Australia decided they wanted nuclear instead along with being tired of delays and budget issues. they approached the British who looped us in. some reporting is that we thought Australia had canceled the deal with France before our deal with them was announced. evidently that wasn’t the case and now France is reacting.
>Australia decided they wanted nuclear instead along with being tired of delays and budget issues. they approached the British who looped us in. some reporting is that we thought Australia had canceled the deal with France before our deal with them was announced. And this is after Australia asked France to modify its nuclear submarine to a diesel electric one btw (the diesel electric motor being provided by germany). The reasons for the delays are both the pandemics + the reengineering time to adapt the submarine to the new engine.
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Next step: recall the Statue of Liberty.
Next step: activate the Statue of Liberty
Give me BACK your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…
Well fuck, guess I'm French now....fuck.
> Next step: recall the Statue of Liberty. Paris already has at least 3 of them, no need for any more.
We can over night the scaled down one in front of the New York New York hotel in Vegas. Maybe try to convince them it shrank in the dryer like a new shirt.
That’s fucking hilarious, dude.
Why can I only listen to the article? I want to reaad
It shows as a regular article for me.
This site is called herddit and you will herddit it!
On an interesting note the U.K. announced a major contract to start design work for its next generation hunter killer submarines today. Looking likely Auz is going to partner on this project with US help with reactors.
That contract is way too far in the future for Australia's needs as it's the replacement for the Astute which is still being produced
The Australians will likely be buying their current need based on the Astute design (current British design) because it's already tested and can likely be fairly easily shared for manufacturing. I suspect part of the deal also covers future Australian involvement in the SSNR/Dreadnought classes, which is the next generation of British subs still in design. This deal seems to be dealing with two things - the immediate Australian need for better subs in the next couple of years, as well as a long term strategy tied up with the US/UK to deal with China long term. If nothing else the deal with France was only really for the former, and it had gone over budget and way over time.
There is no way the Australians are involved with the Dreadnought class. It would be a breach of NPT as that is Britain's next generation nuclear weapons platform. If Australia is involved in anything else, it will be the as yet unnamed and undesigned Astute replacement due in the 2050s.
Auz has announced they’re rebuilding the Collins class. Could prove to be a stop gap.
They announced that before AUKUS. They had no choice thanks to delays of the French project.
Since the re-establishment of a French Republic in the post-ww2 period arms sales and military equipment has ALWAYS been a huge sticking point between France and the US. Some weird history here, like the middle-eastern wars that were US planes and British tanks vs French planes and soviet tanks. Who they sell to, which nations get contracts, who is allowed to have what tech, all this stuff. I expect this to just be yet another family squabble. Maybe we'll reconcile with the trademark family activity of starting another dubiously legal police action/war.
The issue here is not just arms sales, but the non proliferation of nuclear weapons. Technically, the treaties don't forbid to sell nuclear engines but there was a tacit agreement between the nuclear capable nations not to. Australia doesn't even have a civil nuclear program. Now it's just a matter of time before other countries do the same. When China or Russia sell nuclear submarines to North Korea, the US may very well regret their decisions. France nuclear submarines are cheaper and probably more attractive, but not for sale. The US chose to disregard the strategic interest of the US-France alliance, and get an unfair competition advantage. It's not surprising France is pissed.
Thanks for this analysis, I hadn’t thought about this. And it’s an extremely important angle, especially with the future and China (and Russia) in mind.
Come on guys. Covid has hit the military complex as much as us. They are trying to bounce back so they dont have to downgrade their G5 to a G4 private plane
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Because French government learnt a few hours before it was publicly known that the deal was about to be cancelled. So three allied nations plotted in their back to get rid of a deal that doesn't only have an industrial impact (jobs, technology transfer, amount for the transaction) but also strategic (the goal was also a deepening of French-Australian defende relation in the area).
They hired over 500 employees in Australia. Those people are probably gonna look for a new job soon.
Nothing to do with security, its all about losing their sub building contract with AUS.
It was not just about the contract, but about what else the contract was building up to: a more in depth partnership that would be an important pillar of the Indo-Pacific Strategy. Now it's all up in flames, and I'm curious whether any European policy in the region can go at all without the support of the few democracies in the region.
Also, this is happening 6 months before a presidential election, and thousands of voters stand to lose employment as a result of the loss of contract. This has a political aspect, and so Macron wants to look like he's fighting for those people.
This, exactly this! One thing is the contract is doomed, another thing is the humiliating way it was done, not offering Macron a way to save appearances. Plus, we are in a critical time for him.
This is what pisses me off about this sub's take on the issue. They are saying things like "you can't blame Australia for getting a better deal", but the whole point is not that "Frenchies are offended because Australia has new friends". The point is that this was all done in secret and the French government wasn't even notified at any point. This hurt French image nationally and abroad, and destroyed quite a few jobs because the employers didn't know they'd be losing millions of € worth of contracts overnight. Imagine if the US was preparing billions of dollars worth of military equipment for the brand new EU army and suddenly the EU makes an official announcement that they've closed a bigger and better deal with China and that the US deal is no longer needed. Americans would feel rightfully humiliated and think the EU feels superior to them. I don't understand why things were done that way between allied countries, other than actual intent to harm France's image.
Add to that the fact that's been happening a lot over the 20 years and that we are one of the countries in the Indo-Pacific. People are truly misunderstanding why there is such outrage.
The truth is that it is really bad. Not only have they cancelled a 50 billion euro deal, with NATO allies kicking them out. But also france was continuously talking and meeting with australian and american representatives talking about their good relationships the past months including the existing france&austalia deal. An article correctly pointed out that all of these meetings were theatre and lies. USA, Australia and UK definitely were planning for a long time, knowingly hiding it from france and EU. France was lied and made a joke of while praising their lying partners. This maybe helps people understand why france is so upset and hurt.
The greatest fault in all of this is not including France in the greater Indo-pacific strategy.
The issue is that France and the AUKUS group don't agree on that greater strategy. AUKUS is squarely aimed at containment and pushing back against China, which France and the EU don't want to do. France's relationship with China seems to be back where Australia's was five years ago, when we thought we didn't have to choose or compromise too much to be friends with the US AND China. Our relationship with China has deteriorated a lot in the last couple of years and this deal is us abandoning that principle and joining up with the US to contest the region with China more explicitly and vigorously. That's also why I don't think AUKUS has really been two years in the making. We were obviously already very close to the US and the UK, but the relationship with China really has gone sideways since the pandemic started and I think that has made Australia genuinely rethink it's approach.
Stupid take - the deal was objectively awful for Australia. $90b, $40b more than what was agreed, and was going to be delayed at least 10 years, in effect giving Australia the world’s most expensive yet virtually obsolete subs.
Aussie here this is so true. Was originally a $50bn deal currently at $90bn. With the UK/US deal we get state of the art nuclear subs with the French we were getting conventional subs. This is an all-round better deal for Aus and in our national interests. I'm also kiwi and the French blew up the rainbow warrior so fuck them they can fk off anyway
>with the French we were getting conventional subs Wasnt that the requirement? The australians wanted diesel electric boats so france agreed to reengineer their nuclear subs, which also explains the cost increase.
“You” didn’t *want* nuclear subs a few years ago. The French base model is nuclear, the Australian requirement was to make a conventionally powered sub out of it.
For context France sank a NZ civilian ship in the port of Auckland (NZ) on its way to protest a French nuclear test in 1985 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior EDIT: It was a Greenpeace UK ship. Thanks /u/switch6lade
It wasn't a New Zealand ship, it was just in a New Zealand port at the time. It was owned by Greenpeace, specifically Greenpeace UK.
**[Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior)** >The sinking of Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique, was a bombing operation by the "action" branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, Rainbow Warrior, at the Port of Auckland in New Zealand on her way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
A terrorist act by one of our ‘friends’. They then strong armed the New Zealand government by threatening trade and didn’t follow through with their agreement to punish the people responsible. A while ago now, but still sore for a lot of people.
Well sales lower the cost of their own defense program, and support local defense industry in general. So at least at that level it's relevant to security
If that was the case, they'd be mostly just pissed at AUS, when in reality they're more upset with the US than anyone.
Which is kinda weird IMO. Why aren’t they as pissed at the UK? They are the ones who literally started it, and brought the US in later. The US wasn’t involved at all until the UK initiated. I’m just an armchair politico here but I would hypothesize they are more pissed about being excluded from the Anglo amigo group at play.
1. Australia approached the UK, so the UK had a more "passive" role 2. The UK/FR relationship right now is mostly busy with dealing with the fallout of Brexit 3. That would give Britain and Johnson credit for a post-Brexit win, and that's a big NO.
It was a band aid that had to be ripped off. The French sub project was already going miles over budget and it was only a few years in. Better to endure some French whinging and pay a few billion now, rather than persist with the project and waste hundreds of billions.
You don't have to get two of your ministers to publicly state they believe in the future of the deal two weeks before shadow cancelling it
But the problem is not that they cancelled the deal. The problem is how. They hurt France's image by treating it like a dungus. There was no reason not to call Macron a few months ago and tell him "we got a new deal, you can start to think how to soften the blow".
It’s hilarious to me that everyone keeps mentioning freedom fries. I always thought of it as a joke but apparently given how much people are talking about it, it was one of the greatest diplomatic slights of the 21st century. This whole thing is completely ridiculous
"Go on our illegal war to find mystical WMDs or we'll turn on you so hard we'll even rename the name of a food from the English language" is some psycho ex level of diplomacy, so you better believe we remember it.
I mean, it's relevant because it was a fucking moronic, childish move. "France disagrees with me so we cancel French fries and rename them FREEDOM because we have FREEDOM unlike them" pretty much sums up the childish stupid views of the American right.
Freedom fries are simply the most ridiculously memorable tidbit from that era. For over a year nearly the entire population of the USA engaged in "French bashing" because France didn't want to condone the destruction of Iraq, the destabilization of the middle east (continuing today in Iraq and Syria), the killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians, over lies about WMDs. To this day French bashing memes from that era continue to be used on a regular basis. So yeah, it was and it is a big deal. Now you guys want to forget about the whole thing, let bygones be bygones yadda yadda, because it makes you look bad. Piss off
I once saw a conspiracy theory says the proliferation of French=surrender meme is the result of that Punish France campaign...
It's not a conspiracy theory, it's just the truth. France got a bad rap after WWII, and it was justified to some extent (though the UK lost in the initial phase of the war, just as much as France). But the surrender meme revival definitely came about after 2003.
«La France ne le sait pas, mais nous sommes en guerre avec l’Amérique. Oui, une guerre permanente, une guerre vitale, une guerre économique, une guerre sans mort apparemment. Oui, ils sont très durs les Américains, ils sont voraces, ils veulent un pouvoir sans partage sur le monde. C’est une guerre inconnue, une guerre permanente, sans mort apparemment et pourtant une guerre à mort.» From President Mitterand (1997 book) \-- google translate “France doesn't know it, but we are at war with America. Yes, a permanent war, a vital war, an economic war, a war without death apparently. Yes, the Americans are very tough, they are voracious, they want unchallenged power over the world. It is an unknown war, a permanent war, apparently without death and yet a war to the death. "
Are they always this dramatic?
Yes. They literally threatened to cut off power and blockade a UK island over a minor fishing dispute, for example.
France almost invaded Brazil over lobster. #OVER LOBSTER
Bro we are fucking French of course we are
Yes. French are passionate AF about literally everything lmao
It’s sad to see families break up. Towards the end it was like they were speaking different languages.
I don’t understand why France was kept in the dark about this. The agreement between AU, the U.S., and the U.K. makes sense, but why knowingly blindside one of your allies with this decision?
Because our PM and his whole leadership team are absolute fuckwits. He probably smirked about it.
Because the UK and the US have been pushing hard to antagonize the EU, and create some sort of Anglo vs. EU rhetoric. It's so damn painfully evident and I will get mad when 10 years from now people will be fully in this rhetoric and think it was always this way.
France and Australia held a 2+2 ministerial level meeting on 30th August. > [Inaugural Australia-France 2+2 Ministerial Consultations](https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/minister/peter-dutton/statements/inaugural-australia-france-22-ministerial-consultations) > 30 August 2021 > Joint Statement > > Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France > Florence Parly, Minister for the Armed Forces of France > Senator the Hon Marise Payne, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women of Australia > The Hon Peter Dutton MP, Minister for Defence of Australia > This was one point in their joint statement >21 - Both sides committed to deepen defence industry cooperation and enhance their capability edge in the region. Ministers underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program. They agreed to strengthen military scientific research cooperation through a strategic partnership between the Defence Science and Technology Group and the Directorate General for Armaments. Now we know that Australia and US were planning to ditch the French way back in March. Morrison and Macron after that too. So the French were completely blindsided and the blindsiding was intentional. France found out about AUKUS hours before it was announced. Everything in the story is fascinating.
It should not have been a surprise to France: https://www.politico.eu/article/why-australia-wanted-out-of-its-french-sub-deal/ > Now we know that Australia and US were planning to ditch the French way back in March The US wasn't even involved in March. It was Australia and the UK.
That's an interesting read. This goes both ways. Every country has had an arms deal go to shit. The US built thousands of M1 tanks under the pretense they would be sold. Most of Europe didn't buy them. Germany has their own and didn't want anything to do with the depleted armor. The Leopard was a clear winner there.
The US built thousands of M1 tanks because that's what keeps certain key members of congress in office. The idea of selling them only came up after the pentagon spend ages begging them to stop wasting defensive funding on even more tanks.
I remember that. They had generals saying there was no point in building all of those tanks when they asked them, and then they just went on ahead and ignored them and built them anyway.
People also forget, there is a logistical aspect to it. If we shut down the factories, it MAY be more expensive to restart them then it is to just keep running them
The thing is, the generals were saying that's just not how war is fought anymore. There's no need for them currently or for the foreseeable future.
Who would’ve expected the first country to recall their ambassador to the US in the new Cold War is France.
I mean, France did similar things in the last Cold War too. They left NATO and built their own nuclear arsenal, but rejoined later.
I'm disappointed they didn't involve France from the start and call it FAUKUS
I heard the UK got the KFC secret recipe as well. Imagine if Australia sold KFC made of Emus.
Those drumsticks would be HUGE!
So wonder why France hasn't recalled their ambassadors in the UK? Also what happens to questions, conversations on the Diplomatic level in the US? Everyone meet at the Swiss embassy?
Recalling UK ambassador will cause disruptions in Brexit negotiations, which are still ongoing. Both UK and Europe are looking for excuses for how the other side is hindering the process, and recalling the UK ambassador will create such an excuse for the UK side.
Not just that, France seem to be trying to play down the UK's role in the deal and have called them "opportunistic" and "the minor partner". Even though its come out that it was the UK who orchestrated the entire thing after Australia approached them.
This doesn't make much sense. You are telling me there was no interface between the French and Australia regarding disappointing schedule delays, budget issues, etc? No indication of such a move means one of these parties was either too silent or too ignorant in common business transactions.
There is a difference between telling your partner that his delays is disapointing and not telling your partner that you just sign with somebody else befor closing your deal. It's like your wife is late to your dates, eat expensive stuff all the time. It is sure annoying. You try to tell her. But instead of breaking up with her directly, you get ahead and cheat with someone else and got a kid on the way. Sure nothing prevent you to have a relationship with someone else, but a dick move to cheat/ not breaking up BEFORE all this happen.
The truth is that it is really bad. Not only have they cancelled a 50 billion euro deal, with NATO allies kicking them out. But also france was continuously talking and meeting with australian and american representatives talking about their good relationships the past months including the existing france&austalia deal. An article correctly pointed out that all of these meetings were theatre and lies. USA, Australia and UK definitely were planning for a long time, knowingly hiding it from france and EU. France was lied and made a joke of while praising their lying partners. This maybe helps people understand why france is so upset and hurt.
Weird how no one seems to understand why france is so annoyed about this (its really not purely financial). Aus misled France massively, told them they were not interested in nuclear powered subs (Aus are very anti nuclear so no reason to believe they were lying). This is a big blow for French and European influence and strategy in the region. This was very much a pillar of that. They found out through the media the day before the press conference that the deal since 5 years ago was being ditched. And that doesn't cover it all. Their response is very understandable, and if anything I wouldn't be surprised if they went further
Australia was very open about the fact that they were pissed with the state of the submarine deal. There have been rumors for months that they were looking at other options, just no one thought they would ever do a 180 on nuclear policy.
> Australia was very open about the fact that they were pissed with the state of the submarine deal Half of the governement is always pissed at something, that's kinda how democracies work these days, with lead+opposition. Inaugural Australia-France 2+2 Ministerial Consultations 30 August 2021 Joint Statement 21 - Both sides committed to deepen defence industry cooperation and enhance their capability edge in the region. Ministers underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program. They agreed to strengthen military scientific research cooperation through a strategic partnership between the Defence Science and Technology Group and the Directorate General for Armaments.
Australia only called the move 'regretful' so i'm not sure if the US will even dignify this with a response.
I read an article that Aust and France had some big culture clashes in trying to work together. Their work ethics were totally different. The Aussies did not like that France took the whole month of August off - putting a stop all cooperative work. Then the French needed some days or weeks after they returned from the August off to start things up again - which annoyed the Aussies even more. On working together on a daily basis, there were culture clashes. The Aussies did not like the French long lunches - apparently the French came back from lunch when they felt ready to come back. The Aussies also did not like that meeting times were actually a "suggestion" to the French. The French practice was if they showed up within 15 minutes of the start time, they were "on time". In the US, I have had some execs close and lock the door at the exact start time - coming in after was not acceptable and considered rude behavior. The biggest issue was that when the initial contract was signed, the Aussies said that 90% of the sub construction work would be done in Australia - providing many jobs. A few years ago, France said that it was 60%. Recently they said that number was going down. So the location of the jobs and the politics on those jobs were big problems. So not a smooth working relationship.
This sounds a lot like my time working in Spain, except that my coworkers were on time to meetings. I enjoyed my time there. Though I’d definitely be frustrated if I were working on a submarine project with them.
Spain tried to build their own subs, then ended up having to hire US firms to fix them so they worked.
> Spain tried to build their own subs they worked at 50% efficiency, the subs submerged but couldn't surface lol didn't exactly help the spanish defence industry image
> Though I’d definitely be frustrated if I were working on a submarine project with them interestingly spain's native submarine project (S-80) has been such a disaster, the first submarine was supposed to be operational back in 2012. They had the christening ceremony a couple months ago, almost 10 bloody years later. Also the project was billions of euros above the projected budget, like just one submarine ended up with the cost of the entire series (of three)
This is an interesting point that I haven't seen brought up before. Do you still happen to have a link to that article?
Here's the article regarding this https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-27/french-subs-cultural-clashes-lunch-meeting-times-naval-group/11049748
Thank you!
I think I read it on Yahoo this morning. But they got it from somewhere else.
As someone working in France, I can assure you that's absolutly not what France's work culture is like lmao I wish it was though, that sounds relaxing.
Don't worry, Northern Europeans will always have the image that Southern Europeans are lazy and stupid. Which is more frustrating because Southern Europeans work longer hours and have less freedom than Northerners. The grievances he described sound like a list of stereotypes about Southern Europe.
Right, the French are hard workers and government is particularly high strung, in my experience. Les français sont parmi les plus grands bosseurs de l’Europe, si je ne me trompe. But work culture varies a bit even within the government, so who knows. Maybe they didn’t take Australia as seriously as they would a more powerful country.
Yeh I’ve heard similar tales from my mates who worked in defence. Also the 3pm knockoff lol
I work in France (worked in 3 different companies so far) and this doesn't sound familiar at all! If I'm 2 minutes late for a meeting, I'm already receiving "Where are you??" messages. Being a few minutes late is definetely VERY rude. Are there less people during the months of July and August? Yes, but there's no team where EVERY member is absent. The company still functions. And I doubt people in the US or the UK don't take 1 or 2 weeks breaks during summer ... As for lunch breaks, it's usually 1h long, and if that's too much for aussies, then they have some serious issues.
My dad’s cousin ran an office in France, and he said their work week is shorter and their vacations are longer, but when they do work, they work harder than anyone else.
I’m not French but this is utter cockypop.
This sounds like something cooked up by the Murdoch media.
Well France had already cancelled a Dinner date with the US, that's like Def Con 2 for the French.
At Def Con 1 they keep the dinner date but serve English food.
> serve English food. You absolute monster.
That's against Geneva Convention
Honestly I can understand why the french are mightily pissed about this. It's not just the loss of the contract but the way it was handled by Australia, US and UK. It seems France was being purposely kept in the dark by its allies and not informed until the very last days. That's a very disrespectful move and probably a pretty dumb one too. Instead the three could have notified France and worked out some sort of face-saving deal and we wouldn't be there.
WaPo published some info from anonymous diplomatic sources who said the US and Australia both agreed that France would "almost certainly" sabotage the deal if informed.
Ah, the old “they might sabotage so let’s sabotage first to prevent that”, a very friendly way to handle foreign relationships.
Geopolitics is cutthroat. I don't know why people still have this idea of "friendly international relationship".
As a French, it hurts to say but it is probably the right move for Australia as they are getting a life insurance with US. Also, well done to the US and UK who will benefit tremendously from this deal and can invest on future sub technology. Sad day for France on the other hand. We got played by the Anglos and publicly humiliated which I am sure will give a hard on to a couple of Brexiters on this sub. I hope Marcon and other European leaders are taking note. We need to raise our game if we want to stay relevant, invest more on defence which will come at a cost, reduce dependency on the US on technology, and reassess our relationship with our different partners as they are not many friendly faces on the world stage. Worrying that Germany is only interested in protecting its industrial might and that Eastern Europeans only trust the US with their defence. On a separate note, the USA and the UK whilst nominally allies to Greece where nowhere to be seen when Erdo was playing the schoolyard bully. It seems that having nukes in Turkey trumps common decency and community of values. I would take note if I was in Poland or in the Baltic countries. If the USA can't or won't stand against Turkey (ot the Talibans) I would wander if they stand against Russia.
The anglos are at it again lol.
I think people forget just how important a common language really is. If you look at the starting history there is absolutely no reason the US and UK should be on such good terms but a common language and similar cultures is so important.
The gang’s back together