Shadow Foreign Minister Simon Birmingham says it is “well and truly time” for a rapprochement between Australia and France as he defends the previous government’s “necessary” decision to scrap a $90 billion submarine contract.
It comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is set to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in France.
The relationship with France deteriorated in September last year amid the launch of AUKUS, a trilateral defence and security pact between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. The new alliance led Australia to scrap a $90 billion submarine contract with France, which was described by the European nation’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as “a stab in the back”.
“Breaking a significant commercial contract like that was going to come with some pain in terms of the relationship,” Mr Birmingham told Sky News Australia.
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