Macron’s humiliating climbdown over AUKUS

Guess who turned up in Bangkok this week at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting? The forum, which includes the US, China, Australia, Japan, Russia, but not France, was visited by none other than President Macron. ‘You must be asking yourself what a French president is doing here’, he charmed in English.  Macron claimed to be the first European leader to be invited to the forum. He insisted he was there because France is ‘a country of the region’. According to the Elysée this invitation ‘validates the Indo-Pacific strategy launched in 2018’. It does indeed, but with far more subtle ramifications.

It was to be expected that President Macron would eventually seek some kind of association with the Australian, US, UK politico-military agreement known as Aukus. Australia’s decision in September 2021 to terminate France’s ‘contract of the century’ for the construction of 12 diesel powered submarines and then sign another with Washington and London for nuclear versions was seen in France and abroad as a serious humiliation for the French president.  It was much more than a commercial slap in the face.

In 2018 Macron set out a remarkably ambitious French geopolitical strategy for the Indo-Pacific. It was beautifully grounded intellectually in the necessity for France at long last to correct the errors of history whereby she concentrated her military force on land to the detriment of the sea. Conscious of the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific region economically and geo-strategically he emphasised French assets in the area – confetti remnants of empire such as French Polynesia or New Caledonia – that gave her a physical toe-hold in the region protected by 7,000 French troops. He set about bolstering France’s Indo-Pacific presence signing agreements with India for the sale of Rafale fighter aircraft, submarines to Australia and frigates to Indonesia. All ran to plan until Aukus.

As so often with Macron hubris played its part in his mortification. From his particularly hostile reaction to Britain after Brexit, to his constant criticism of the USA and reference to Nato as ‘brain dead’, he was setting himself up for a fall. When it came with the Aukus deal he reacted with traditional pique, called the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison a liar and recalled French ambassadors from Canberra and Washington, sparing London (for it was merely the ‘spare wheel’ of the deal). All of this underlined his embarrassment.

It is not so much that Macron has conquered his demons, but that international politics and personalities have moved on. France’s former foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, was publicly jubilant at Scott Morrison’s defeat in this year’s Australian general elections. Macron has gone out of his way to woo the new Labour premier Anthony Albanese, most recently at last week’s G20 summit in Bali. Boris Johnson is no more and Macron has extended his ‘Anglo-Saxon’ charm offensive to Rishi Sunak.

Ever since the election of Albanese in May Macron has attempted to restart the ‘strategic’ partnership with Australia. Last week he stated for the first time that France still hoped to sell her submarines and that the deal ‘is still on the table’. He added patronisingly that ‘the British were incapable’ of supplying the submarines and that the US had ‘a very full dance card’. This bravurais to mask his climbdown over Aukus. What has always been a logical, albeit humiliating, step is for France join the pact and participate in the submarine construction. He is scheduled to see Albanese again in the coming months.

However, French inclusion will be difficult. First Paris will not be an easy partner. Her five year long battle with the Germans over the new European fighter aircraft, finally signed this week, bodes ill.  Macron and the political class have been insisting of late that France has been too naïve in dealing with partners as well as rivals.  Second, Aukus is a nuclear submarine contract. Macron publicly criticised it for being in breach of the non-proliferation treaty. The US may also have qualms about sharing nuclear technology with Paris. Third, Aukus also involves intelligence sharing between three principal ‘Five Eyes’ partners. France has always wanted to join, but Washington has been a major blocker. Finally for Macron to be invited into Aukus, other partners, notably London, may wish France to be more accommodating elsewhere, such as on post-Brexit trade friction.

Churchill used to say that he occasionally had to eat his words, adding that he always found them a very palatable diet. How much of a gourmet will Macron be?