France Furious At U.S. - Will It Take Nuclear Option Of Quitting NATO?

As a furious France plots its revenge for America’s treachery on its subs deal, will it take the nuclear option of quitting NATO?

Rachel Marsden,

The anger in Paris is stratospheric towards Washington, and a wounded President Macron may just follow de Gaulle’s example from the 1960s, and say au revoir to the transatlantic military alliance.

“A stab in the back,” is how French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described US President Joe Biden’s announcement of a new club of three – the US, Great Britain and Australia – under the guise of countering China in the Indo-pacific region. 

The defense minister, Florence Parly, was also taken aback by Biden’s announcement of the group called “AUKUS.” The French are outraged over Biden’s unexpected announcement of America’s new massive defense contract with Australia, which scuppered a similar one signed by Canberra with France’s Naval Group in 2018. 

“The first major initiative of AUKUS will be to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia,” Biden said. “We intend to build these submarines in Adelaide, Australia, in close cooperation with the United Kingdom and the United States.” 

Who’s Biden kidding? This entire charade is about using a Chinese bogeyman to keep the US military-industrial complex in the manner to which its shareholders have become accustomed. If it was really just about national security, there was already a French contract in place to achieve that. 

The betrayal is particularly jarring since it comes around the same time as two other events which underline the sacrifices that France has made in solidarity with the US. First, within hours of Biden’s announcement, French President Emmanuel Macron informed the world that French forces in the Sahel region of Africa had neutralized the leader of ISIS responsible for the death of American soldiers in 2017. 

Secondly, the recent chaotic US-led withdrawal from the 20-year war in Afghanistan left many French – whose military operations there ended in 2012 and training of Afghan forces concluded in 2014 – soul-searching as to whether the sacrifices made purely in support of its US ally in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, were ultimately worth the costs.

Into the current climate now crash-lands this overt American-led betrayal of France, which reacted by cancelling a gala at the French embassy in Washington that was supposed to celebrate the Franco-American relationship. That’s clearly not going far enough.

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