If, seen from Paris, the Australian decision to break the contract for the delivery of twelve conventional submarines is perceived as “A blow in the back”, Australia does not intend to decline an apology. However, the nuclear option on which Canberra is committed is not unanimous.
Defense Minister Peter Dutton assured that he did not regret the abandonment of the French project for a better offer from the United States. The Americans indeed promise to share sensitive nuclear technologies with the Australians, who do not have a nuclear industry, as part of the new strategic alliance Aukus (Australia, United Kingdom, United States), sealed Thursday, September 16 between Washington, London and Canberra.
“At the end of the day, I am making no excuse for a decision that is in the best interest of our country”Mr Dutton said, quoted by public media ABC. “ We live in uncertain times and it was very clear to me that nuclear submarines [étaient] for us a much better platform than what the French offered. ” The advanced costs of breaking the “contract of the century” (a total of 90 billion dollars on the Australian side, or 56 billion euros) will be close to 2 billion dollars. “It’s an expensive business. You don’t get peace and security for free ”, further justified the Minister of Defense.
“Mismanagement” of the initial submarine project
However, some have not failed to observe the irony of the approach: the design of the Attack-class submarines ordered by Australia from France, through the Naval Group, had to be specifically adapted to conventional electric-diesel propulsion. The initial French model, Barracuda, was however nuclear powered. If the new pact between the three traditional allies is not really called into question on the island-continent and the virulent reaction of Beijing surprises no one, the questions relate more to the stakes of the adoption of the technology. nuclear.
Environmentalists are firm in their categorical rejection of any nuclear approach, assuring that they will fight “tooth and nail” against the project.
The Labor Party, in opposition, although welcoming the tripartite Aukus alliance, nevertheless wanted to clarify certain points. The leader of the training, Anthony Albanese, declined “Three conditions for the support of nuclear-powered submarines, on which we are going to take care” : “That there are no prerequisites for a domestic nuclear industry, that there is no acquisition of nuclear weapons, and that what is the subject of agreements be compatible with the Treaty of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons ”, he stressed. Not without denouncing “Mismanagement” of the initial submarine project, which “Took place, for eight years, under three prime ministers [conservateurs] and six defense ministers, and swallowed up billions of taxpayer dollars ”.
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