French President accuses Scott Morrison of provoking confrontation with China, Anthony Albanese responds

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says French President Emmanuel Macron is “entitled to his views” after accusing his predecessor of provoking “nuclear confrontation” with China.

Overnight, Mr Macron said former prime minister Scott Morrison had undermined Australia’s security and sovereignty after scrapping the $90bn French submarine contract.

Mr Albanese said Australia had re-established a friendly relationship with France, and that Mr Macron had autonomy over his views.

He said the pair spoke last night.

“We had a very friendly exchange as we always do.”

On the sidelines of the APEC leaders’ meeting in Thailand on Thursday, Mr Macron said France’s deal with Australia to build conventional submarines was “non-confrontational” for China and would have strengthened Australia’s “freedom and sovereignty”.

Instead, he reiterated that Mr Morrison had undermined Australia’s security – a year after he accused the former prime minister of lying to him about scrapping the deal.

Mr Albanese said Mr Macron was “entitled to make whatever comments he wants as the leader of France”.

“We were helping and accompanying Australia in building a submarine fleet in-house, an industrial co-operation,” Mr Macron said.

“So it was both industrial co-operation and giving sovereignty to Australia because they will maintain the submarines themselves, and it is not confrontational to China because they are not nuclear-powered submarines.

“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 made reference to concerns that neither the US or UK would have capacity to build submarines for Australia until at least the middle of the next decade.

He said the offer to build together or sell French submarines to Australia was still on the table.

Mr Albanese reiterated that Australia had not decided to change strategy.

“We are proceeding with the AUKUS arrangements … And we have a good, cooperative relationship with France,” Mr Albanese said.

“And we’ll continue to engage on ways in which France can assist Australia in the road map that we agreed on when we met in Paris which is about defence and security … and energy and the environment.”