Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Anthony Albanese's burden — even before he drove through the gates of the Élysée Palace — lay in two words.
Tangible actions.
This expression of anaemic diplo-babble has hung menacingly over the French-Australian relationship since Emmanuel Macron's prickly phone call with former prime minister Scott Morrison last October.
Macron had just given Morrison a Gallic blast for cancelling a $90 billion submarine contract. A terse statement issued by the French President a short time later didn't disguise the fury.
"It is now up to the Australian government to propose tangible actions that embody the political will of Australia's highest authorities to redefine the basis of our bilateral relationship and continued joint action in the Indo-Pacific," it read.
France wasn't naming its price for restoration of diplomatic peace: Australia had to devise what that might be.
But that price soared when Morrison — or his lieutenants — leaked private text messages that the President had sent to the then-PM.
This short-sighted, crude act was in response to Macron accusing Morrison of lying in an exchange that'll be forever remembered.
The ABC had intercepted Macron post-press conference on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome.
"Do you think he lied to you?" Macron was asked.
But what tangible actions could Albanese conjure to heal the French offence?
Albanese has no intention of disentangling the Labor government from the AUKUS deal with its "forever friends", the Americans and the Brits, which will see Australia procuring nuclear-powered submarines from its oldest allies sometime in the 2040s.
The answer came on May 21 when Australian voters exercised the most tangible of electoral levers and tossed Morrison from power.
It's not hard to imagine Macron having toasted that turn of events.
Election serves as salve to old wounds
Asked by an Australian reporter if Albanese should apologise for what the French President has described as a "profound breach of trust", Macron was all Zen.
The fact that Anthony Albanese is not Scott Morrison seemed to be enough for Macron to allow a Ctrl+Alt-Del on the France-Australia relationship.
But not quite.
There is a heady mix of personal politics and the geopolitical in Macron's sudden warmth towards Albanese. It's realpolitik, western democratic strategy and cold hard cash that've restored the relationship between the two nations to more normal settings.
That's notwithstanding Macron's elegant historic positioning of the alliance in the context of a long fight against tyranny.
"Nobody has forgotten in France the fight led by tens of thousands of young Australian people who came to fight with us in the trenches of the Somme almost a century ago," the French President said from the lectern.
"We will never forget, the brotherhood that was born in this common battle, this sacrifice. Never."
It's what he said next that rang truest.
Bigger issues for two countries at hand
And here was the real reckoning.
The Morrison government's cancellation of an over-budget, behind-schedule submarine contract with French company Naval Group shrinks in significance to the 21st-century struggle between democracy and autocracy.
When the global West is in a bloody dogfight with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, two nuclear-powered, revisionist authoritarians intent on redrawing boundaries in Eastern Europe and the Indo-Pacific, the defenders of the ballot box have to stick together — even when they squabble.
Of course, it helps when the one offended — in this case, France — receives above-the-odds compo for Australia reneging on the deal.
Australia and France have great common interest in the Indo-Pacific that will extend beyond any prime ministership or presidency.
Xi has cemented this global realisation with the Chinese President's territorial ambition and his government's debt diplomacy that's ensnared some of the region's poorer nations.
Rebuilding trust after 'difficult period'
Of course, it also suits Albanese to assert that Labor's greater climate ambition has helped restore relations with France and its European cousins.
Which is true but it is also convenient. And Macron was all too happy to play along in both regards.
The two leaders' strongest bond is in their distaste for Scott Morrison, not that he was mentioned by either of the men when they addressed the media.
Macron only alluded to the recent troubles when he spoke of "our willingness to rebuild a relationship based on trust between our two countries based on mutual respect after, we all know, a difficult period of time."
Albanese was a bit more pointed.
For Albanese and Macron it was Mission Accomplished. They'd both implicitly savaged Morrison's character to resume a seemingly friendly relationship that satisfies economic self-interest and common geo-strategic goals.
Macron talked of cooperation with Australia on hydrogen and critical minerals which are key to battery manufacture.
Join the queue, Mr President. Everyone wants to talk to Australia about its vast critical mineral reserves, as well as its great hydrogen export potential.
Tangible actions indeed.
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