Paris: French President Emmanuel Macron will speak in the coming days with President Joe Biden in their first contact since the main diplomatic crisis erupted between France and the US for a submarine agreement with Australia, said an official on Sunday.
Phone calls are Biden’s request, said Gabriel Attal government spokesman.
What France did now as a “big crisis” erupted at the sudden end, a surprise to the 2016 contract worth at least $ 66 billion between France and Australia to build 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines.
On the contrary, Australia entered US and Britain for eight nuclear-powered submarines.
France insisted it was not told about the previous agreement.
“What is in this matter, this crisis is a strategic problem before it becomes a commercial problem,” Attal said in an interview about BFMTV.
“The question is …
troops are present, balance, at the Indo-Pacific where parts of our future are a role, and our relationship with China.” The agreement by the US reflects American pivots towards the Indo-Pacific region, seen as the increasingly strategic such as China increases its influence there.
But France felt the transaction stepping on it in the area where it had long had a strong presence too, working to support.
“France is a country in the Indo-Pacific,” Attal said, noting the French region of New Caledonia, a Frenchman who lived in the region and French military forces were based there.
Indo-Pacific is also a problem for Europe, he said.
Macron will look for an explanation from Biden about what caused “a big broken trust,” said the spokesman.
“There is a moment of surprise, anger …
Now, we have to go forward.”