The ties between the United States and its oldest ally, France, have long been fraternal, but they have also been marked by deep French unease over their equality.

French concerns about being the junior partner in the relationship boiled over last week when the United States, Britain and Australia announced a new security initiative for the Indo-Pacific, aimed at countering a rising China.

The AUKUS agreement scuttled a multibillion-dollar submarine deal that France had with Australia. But more alarmingly for the French, they pointedly ignored them, reinforcing a sense of insecurity that has haunted Paris since the end of World War II.

Also read: Quad Summit: China’s view on the diplomatic grouping

France has long bristled at what it sees as Anglo-Saxon arrogance on the global stage and has not been shy about rallying resistance to perceptions of British- and German-speaking dominance in matters ranging from commerce to conflict.

Successive American presidents through the decades have ignored French warnings about military involvements from Indochina to Iraq. France’s lessons learned in Vietnam and Algeria didn’t translate. And, when France has on occasion supported military interventions, notably in Syria in 2013, the Americans have pulled back.

AUKUS resulted in an explosion of ire, with the French protesting and recalling their ambassadors to the US and Australia while shunning the British in an overt manifestation of centuries of rivalry.

Also read: India, Japan ruled out of joining AUKUS: White House

The French argue they are a natural partner for an initiative to blunt China’s growing assertiveness in the Pacific, with far more territory, troops and influence in the region than Britain, whose empire has shrunk to just one inhabited island there. As such, they would have expected to have been consulted, particularly by a US administration that ostensibly champions multilateral diplomacy and values allies.

“It leaves an unpleasant taste of being disdained and sidelined,” said Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to the United States who is now at Carnegie Europe, a branch of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

While officials from the Biden administration raised eyebrows over the intensity of the French reaction, many acknowledge that the announcement of the initiative was handled poorly with little to no thought to how Paris would respond.

Indeed, the joint US-French statement following the Wednesday make-up call between Presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron said “the two leaders agreed that the situation would have benefitted from open consultations among allies on matters of strategic interest to France and our European partners.”