The Defense Ministry of France took to Twitter to defend its country’s submarine-making capabilities and to criticize Australia’s decision to choose the US as a partner in a major defense deal.
Defense Ministry spokesman Herve Grandjean made a series of tweets regarding the deal, which also includes Britain along with Australia and the US.
“France has built more than 250 submarines” over 120 years, Grandjean said, and “the feedback in terms of engineering and know-how is considerable.”
Grandjean charged that Australia’s decision was bad news for Australians. He said that the new AUKUS partnership will mean the country is likely to get the submarines a decade later than planned. Instead of 2030, now it will be more like 2040, he tweeted.
Addressing the criticism that French submarines may not have been quiet enough to do the job, Grandjean said that the conventional submarines offered by France were likely quieter than nuclear ones, as a conventional submarine does not have a permanent cooling system for its reactor in operation.
