France reacted to the agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (with the breaking of the contract for the supply of 12 French submarines to Australia) by adopting a harsh language towards the allies and withdrawing its ambassadors from Canberra and Washington. A week after the outbreak of the crisis within NATO, President Emmanuel Macron collected a joint statement with his US counterpart Joe Biden with some commitment that was not too precise and little more. According to Ulrich Speck , analyst at the German Marshall Fund, the result is “rather poor”. Why France, after showing a bit of Gaullism (also in view of the vote in the spring
), was satisfied so quickly
According to the foreign policy expert, the reason is simple: “he discovered he had no partners and allies” by his side; “Instead, the risk of alienating many of them grew day by day”.
During a telephone interview on Wednesday evening, Macron agreed with Biden the return to Washington of the French ambassador Philippe Etienne .next week. And Biden said yes to a meeting with Macron to be held in Europe at the end of October, when the White House tenant will be in Rome for the first time at the G20 summit, “to arrive at some points of agreement and keep in this process has all its dynamism ”, as stated in the joint note released by the White House and Elisha. The two leaders also agreed to “launch a process of in-depth consultations” which will aim to create the conditions necessary to guarantee “trust and to propose concrete measures to achieve common objectives”.
Furthermore, “President Biden reaffirmed the strategic importance of the French and European engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, included in the framework of the recently published European Union strategy for the Indo-Pacific. The United States also recognizes the importance of a stronger European defense, which contributes positively to transatlantic and global security and which is complementary to NATO “, reads the note released by the White House, which closes by affirming the commitment of the United States to strengthen support for anti-terrorism operations conducted by European countries – France in the first place – in the Sahel.
In recent days, France had tried to make Aukus a “European problem” by collecting the solidarity of the Union but also some very prudent declarations on a possible reset of relations with the United States evoked by Thierry Breton , European Commissioner for the Internal Market, very close to President Macron.
In Brussels, French attempts to postpone the inauguration of the EU-US Council for Trade and Technology, scheduled for Wednesday 29 September, in Pittsburgh, seem to be weakening more and more. Paris was hoping for a postponement to give a European signal to Washington: it was assumed to wait at least for the informal dinner of the leaders scheduled for 5 October on the sidelines of the summit with the Balkan countries in Slovenia. But the pressure on the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, even on the part of some members of the executive (in particular those of the Northern and Eastern countries), are very strong. The fear is that the progress achieved by the entire European Union with the United States on the trade front will be jeopardized by the French submarine dossier which involves the other 26 member states not too much.
