France seeking to reposition within Atlantic alliance

PARIS, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was given a reserved reception in Paris on Tuesday, as anger remains over France being ousted by Washington from Australia's submarine deal.

Efforts were made to identify concrete actions that could restore confidence between France and the United States. However, analysts say that the transatlantic rift caused by recent events, from Afghanistan to the Indo-Pacific, has pushed France - and to a larger extent Europe - further towards re-positioning itself within its alliance with the U.S.

Blinken's reception in Paris this week was in stark contrast to the warm welcome he received in June. During that first high-level visit representing President Joe Biden's administration in France, Blinken, who speaks fluent French and calls Paris his "second home," said the U.S. wanted to revitalize relations with its European allies.

This week Blinken was officially in Paris for a meeting at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, but took the opportunity to attempt to soothe his French allies. The French government has said it felt "stabbed in the back" by a pact between the U.S., Australia and Britain which resulted in France losing a multibillion-dollar contract for submarines.

Blinken held talks with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, but there was no joint press conference afterwards. He was also received by French President Emmanuel Macron. The "at length, face-to-face meeting" should "help restore confidence" between the two countries, said a statement from the Elysee.

"Washington, which publicly made amends after the Australian submarine crisis, said nothing more and promised to seek 'concrete action' to seal reconciliation," Agence-France Presse reported.

Three weeks ago, Australia, the U.S. and Britain announced a security partnership called AUKUS, whose first initiative is the delivery of a nuclear-powered submarine fleet to Australia by the latter two countries. This came despite the Australian government's multibillion-dollar 2016 contract to buy diesel-electric submarines from France.

Since France was not consulted or notified in advance of the AUKUS deal, Le Drian said the trilateral move was dishonest, a "backstabbing," and a "betrayal."

A few days later, Biden called Macron, recognizing that "the situation would have benefitted from open consultations." He agreed "to open a process of in-depth consultations aimed at creating the conditions for ensuring confidence and proposing concrete measures toward common objectives."

The dialogue has resumed, but for France, the crisis is not over, and the ball is in the U.S.'s court. In order to resolve the situation, "serious actions will be needed, not words," Le Drian said last week. The goal of the exchange with Blinken this Tuesday was to "identify the steps that may allow a return of confidence between our two countries," said his ministry.

As France waits to see what the U.S. will put on the table, some analysts are looking ahead.

The submarine crisis has made a serious dent in France-U.S. relations. "Beyond that, it is the very idea of alliance that is once again at the center of strategic thinking," said Bertrand Badie, emeritus professor at Sciences Po, in an interview with Xinhua.

Thierry de Montbrial, founder and executive chairman of France's Institute for International Relations (IFRI), also called on France to review the foundations of its foreign policy in the light of the new global situation.

Both analysts thought France and Europe should carry out a precise assessment of the situation.

The "reinvention" of American foreign policy announced by Joe Biden "is likely to be less favorable to Europe, because it is more in the service of the American middle classes who are wary of globalization and whose center of interest is constituted more by Asia than by the Old Continent," said Badie.

"We have no reason to leave the Atlantic Alliance, but we have no interest in seeing it turn into an anti-China alliance," said De Montbrial.

France initiated a review of NATO's strategic concept years ago. It also vowed to make developing an EU security strategy a priority when it takes on the bloc's presidency at the start of 2022.

However, "the concept of strategic autonomy is still imprecise and is not the subject of a consensus between the European partners," Badie said.

"In terms of security, the instability of our neighborhood in the South and in the East should be our main concern. Most of the meager resources at our disposal must be concentrated in these directions," said De Montbrial.