If it does not oppose renewing ties with Australia, France says it would like a dialogue “very seriously”.
France is waiting to have a “firm dialogue” with Australia before resuming high-level communication after concluding a major deal for Canberra submarines, it said on Tuesday.
Since the announcement of the AUKUS alliance between the US, Australia and the United Kingdom in the Indo-Pacific region, France has been outraged that Emmanuel Macron spoke with US Joe Biden and Britain’s Boris Johnson last week, but did not speak to the Australian Prime Minister.
It is “out of the question” whether President Emmanuel Macron is available to “talk” with Scott Morrison because “he is still”, but it is a question of “preparing this conversation in the most serious way”. “It will happen when the time comes,” he said.
Australia “does not behave properly in this matter”
He said last week that Australian Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron had failed to reach out and agreed to be “patient” to rejoin Paris. The French ambassador to Australia, who has been recalled to Paris, will return to Canberra “on a date yet to be decided” and the Elysee Palace has indicated that the US will join Washington on Wednesday.
The President stressed that “Australia is an important partner country” in the Indo-Pacific region, “in this case it is not doing well.” Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday morning confirmed that the AUKUS alliance had not “changed France’s Indo-Pacific strategy in any way,” adding that “with one million comrades living in the region, there is a force that does not care about any deal and more than 8000 soldiers are stationed there.”