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President Emmanuel Macron met on October 29 with his US counterpart, Joe Biden, for the first time since the diplomatic conflict between the two countries broke out over the AUKUS defense agreement. The French president indicated that he intends to advance relations with Washington, while Biden acknowledged his own mistakes that he described as “clumsy.”
France is trying to turn the page in the biggest dispute with the United States in decades.
President Emmanuel Macron received his American counterpart, Joe Biden, at the French embassy in Rome on October 29, a meeting that had been rejected by Paris since the diplomatic conflict between the former allies broke out over the controversial AUKUS agreement, announced on last September 16.
“We must look to the future (…) What really matters now is what we will do together in the coming weeks, in the coming months,” Macron said on Friday, after referring to the rebuilding of trust between the two parties.
The Indo-Pacific Defense Pact, signed between the US, Australia and the UK, sparked the ire of Paris. The main discomfort? AUKUS sank a millionaire contract, for around 60,000 million euros, in the construction of diesel submarines that Canberra and the French authorities had already agreed in 2016.
Under the new terms, it was established that submersibles will be developed by Washington and London with nuclear propulsion technology.
The unprecedented dispute, described by the Macron Administration as “a stab in the back”, even led to the withdrawal of the French ambassadors in Washington and Canberra.
Although the Elysee Palace later announced the return of its diplomatic representative to the US capital, it warned that there was still a long way to go to regain confidence. Something that now seems to advance, in the words of the French president.
“It is an important meeting because after the AUKUS affair we have embarked on a true joint project,” Macron told the press, along with Biden.
In the Indo-Pacific region, of great economic and demographic weight, France is the only European nation with significant territorial possessions or permanent military presence. However, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom are also seeking action by citing concerns about Chinese influence.
Biden describes his government’s actions on AUKUS as “clumsy”
The US president acknowledged mistakes on the part of his Administration. “What we did was clumsy, it was not done very gracefully (…) I had the impression that France had been informed long before that the agreement (with Australia) was not being carried out,” Biden said.
Likewise, the Democratic leader called Paris an “extremely valuable partner (…) We have no better ally than France, with the same values” as the United States.
But according to the information released so far by the White House, Washington does not plan to reverse its submarine agreement with Australia, nor does it plan to provide any kind of financial compensation to the Macron Administration for the losses caused.
However, judging by the declarations of the leaders prior to the G20 summit, the two countries will continue working on international cooperation projects. For Macron, the recovery of trust means “in enhanced cooperation “.
“We want to strengthen the strategic partnership between the European Union and NATO,” said the French president, who also expressed his desire to collaborate in Indo-Pacific security, from which his country felt displaced.
The attempts of rapprochement between Paris and Canberra are different. Despite the fact that Macron returned his ambassador to the Australian capital weeks after he did the same with his representative in the United States, on Thursday, October 28, Macron asked Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison for financial compensation for the losses of the agreement.
The Elysee Palace explained in a statement that its government reminded Morrison of the “unilateral” nature of the breach of the contract. Unlike the rapprochement with the United States, an economic compensation weighs for the reestablishment of relations between France and Australia.
With AP, Reuters and AFP
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