Former prime minister Scott Morrison's decision to tear up a submarine deal with France and pursue nuclear-powered vessels sparked "nuclear confrontation" with China, President Emmanuel Macron says.
Mr Morrison last year dumped the $90 billion contract with French military shipyard Naval Group in the wake of , announcing Australia would instead acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
Speaking in Thailand on the sidelines of the APEC Leaders' Summit, Mr Macron told reporters France's deal offered Australia "freedom and sovereignty" because the submarines could be maintained domestically unlike the nuclear-powered vessels.
Mr Macron said the French submarines were also not a provocation to China because they were not nuclear-powered.
“But the choice made by [former] prime minister Morrison was the opposite, re-entering into nuclear confrontation, making himself completely dependent by deciding to equip themselves [with a] submarine fleet that the Australians are incapable of producing and maintaining in-house,” Mr Macron said.
Last year, then-prime minister Scott Morrison dumped a $90 billion submarines contract with French military shipyard Naval Group, which sparked anger from President Emmanuel Macron. Source: AAP / Bianca De Marchi
The delivery of could take years, potentially leaving Australia short of capacity at a time when .
Mr Macron said the offer to cooperate with Australia on submarines still stood, but France would not supply nuclear submarines to foreign countries, so the offer related only to conventional vessels.
Sam Roggeveen, a defence analyst at the Lowy Institute, said it was sensible for Mr Macron to pitch French conventional submarines as a stop-gap.
"Australia needs an interim conventional submarine to fill the gap between the improved Collins Class and the AUKUS submarines," he told news agency AFP.
"They could be French — why not?"
Australia-Franco relations took a dive following Mr Morrison's decision.
Mr Albanese hailed a new start in ties during a visit to Paris in July, stressing he would act with "trust, respect and honesty" in his dealings with Mr Macron.
At the same time, Mr Macron said he because he was "not responsible for what happened".
The pair also met at the G20 Summit in Bali on Wednesday where they discussed working together on defence, security, climate change and culture.
Mr Macron met with Mr Albanese at G20 summit Bali. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
But while it shares Australia's concerns about China's assertiveness, it has been keen to craft its own strategy for the region.
Mr Macron on Friday he will give a speech at the APEC Summit as he seeks to relaunch his Indo-Pacific policy after the AUKUS humiliation.
"In this highly contested region, which is the theatre of a confrontation between the two major world powers, our strategy is to defend freedom and sovereignty," Mr Macron said on Thursday.
The APEC meeting comes hard on the heels of a G20 summit in Bali where Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Joe Biden held landmark talks aimed at easing tensions between the world's two biggest economies.
Also at the G20, Mr Albanese became the first Australian prime minister .
Mr Morrison's office has been contacted for comment.
With additional reporting by Chief Political Correspondent Anna Henderson.
