The meeting owes nothing to chance. On the first day of the United Nations climate conference, Monday 1er November, in Glasgow, Scotland, Emmanuel Macron spoke with an old acquaintance: Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister, in power when France signed the sale to his country of twelve conventional submarines. The day before, during the G20 summit in Rome, the French head of state had ostensibly avoided all contact with his successor, Scott Morrison, the one who broke the “contract of the century”, to favor American nuclear-powered buildings, as part of a defense pact with Washington and London (Aukus), negotiated in secret from Paris. Mr Macron, interviewed by Australian television at the end of the Italian summit, even exhausted the head of the liberal government: “I don’t think so, I know he lied. “ What taint the reputation of the great rival of Mr. Turnbull, himself very critical of the about-face of his country.
So goes French diplomacy, soon two months after the “Aukus affair”. The slap inflicted on Paris has the paradoxical effect of acting as a kind of spring, an obsession fueled by anger and the fierce desire to respond to the snub. In this context, the grudge against the “duplicity” of the leaders of Canberra is a dish best eaten cold. The president certainly agreed, two days before the G20, to speak on the phone with Mr. Morrison, without setting him an appointment at the summit. Sunday morning, the Australian Prime Minister himself avoided approaching Mr. Macron, just after the traditional “family photo”, in a room of the palace next to the Trevi fountain, where they crossed without speaking, in presence of the host, Mario Draghi, the president of the Italian council.
Strengthen the transatlantic link
With the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, a tête-à-tête did take place, but other disputes, aggravated by the crisis of confidence caused by Aukus, have since further strained relations between Paris and London. It was above all, Sunday morning, to explain the fishing, and the non-compliance by the Kingdom of the Northern Irish protocol of the Brexit agreement. The two men did not really take the time to return to the case, even if Mr. Macron does not digest the blow from London: the Aukus alliance. “Exhibited behavior that was not quite that of an ally. (…) I said it to the British Prime Minister who moreover recognized it perfectly ”, explained the head of state.
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