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The French and Australian defense and foreign ministers sought to rebuild ties broken after the submarine crisis in Paris on Monday, January 30, also announcing the delivery of jointly manufactured 155mm shells to Ukraine.
“Several thousand 155mm shells will be jointly manufactured,” French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu said, adding that the first deliveries were scheduled for the first quarter of 2023. 155mm shells are what fire various artillery pieces. Westerners supplied to Ukraine in its war against Russia, such as the French Césars, the American M777 or the German Panzerhaubitze 2000.
“Our arms industries must produce faster, while controlling costs and managing stocks,” added Lecornu, stating that the agreement allowed “doing it in pairs, limiting the budgetary effort and not taking stocks from our armies.” “The idea is to provide significant help and a continued effort over time,” she added.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles called it a “multi-billion dollar project” and a “new cooperation between the Australian and French defense industries.” On the French side, the contract will be executed by the French arms group Nexter, which will use Australian gunpowder.
Trust between Paris and Canberra was shattered in September 2021, when Australia’s former Conservative government abruptly canceled a $90 billion Australian (56 billion euro) contract for 12 French Naval Group submarines, preferring British or nuclear-powered submarines. americans.
Bilateral relations remained tense until the election in May 2022 of a new Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, who has since sought to smooth relations with Paris as the two capitals want to understand each other in the Indo-Pacific, a strategic area crucial in the coming years.
The head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, who was also receiving her counterpart Penny Wong, minimized the “episode” of the submarines before expressing her desire to “continue this work of rebuilding an association that we want ambitious” on the basis of the “mutual respect, trust and ambition”.