Franco-British military cooperation is also going through an area of turbulence, Paris and London not being able to agree on the continuation of the anti-ship and cruise missile program that they had planned to jointly develop. This discord over a project deemed crucial for European strategic autonomy comes in a very tense political context after the announcement of a strategic partnership between the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom to counter China, AUKUS, including the supply of nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra and which effectively took Paris out of the game.
“Undoubtedly this is a struggling program, given the state of our relations with the UK. We are currently thinking about what it is possible to do or not with the British, ”Armed Minister Florence Parly told the National Assembly’s Defense of Foreign Affairs committee on Tuesday. As part of the Lancaster House Treaty of 2010, which seals Franco-British defense cooperation, Paris and London are working on a program intended to develop by 2030 a new generation of anti-ship missiles to replace the Navy’s Exocets. French and American-made Royal Navy Harpoons, as well as cruise missiles.
“The ball is in their court”, says Paris
But this FMAN / FMC (future anti-ship missile / future cruise missile) project is slipping. “This program was to be the subject of intense discussions in the coming weeks (…) When they made the choice, first of Brexit, then of” Global Britain “(a strategic concept which directs British foreign policy towards The United States and the Indo-Pacific) and, finally, the further increased dependence on the United States, the ball is in their court, ”explained Florance Parly. A first study of 100 million euros, financed in equal parts, had started in March 2017, on the eve of the official launch of the process of leaving the EU by the United Kingdom. This focused on a concept phase.
The two countries have been negotiating for several months a new three-year study on the two concepts retained: a stealth subsonic concept to meet the need for an airborne long-range cruise missile and a supersonic concept for the anti-ship missile airborne or fired from surface ships, detailed a report from French deputies at the end of 2020. In these discussions, the British emphasized the stealth of the machine, the French on its speed, according to the deputies. But the British tend to lose interest in the anti-ship missile project carried by the French, according to a French source familiar with the matter.
The stake of this cooperation is important, the two countries represent 60% of the European expenditure of defense and 80% of the expenditure of research and development in the field of defense. And even if Paris has stepped up cooperation with Berlin since 2017 and calls for the advent of European strategic autonomy, London remains at the heart of its military cooperation projects. The Franco-British relationship “suffered de facto a cold snap, “says Christian Cambon, chairman of the Senate Defense Committee and” Brexit, whether we like it or not, has not created the most favorable climate “. But, according to him, “our industrial and defense and security interests are so important and common that things will resume their place.”