Australian Prime
Minister Scott Morrison is refusing to back down after French President
Emmanuel Macron used tough words against him over a scrapped submarine deal.
Morrison and Macron met at the G20 summit in Rome over the weekend. There, when
the French president was asked if he thought that the Australian PM had been
untruthful, Macron said: “I don’t think. I know.”

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This remark set off
a political maelstrom. Tensions between Australia and France had run high ever
since the submarine deal fell through, but the recent comments by the two
leaders have escalated the strain. Responding to the French President’s charge,
Scott Morrison said that his nation will not accept “sledging” and “slurs”.

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“I have got broad
shoulders, I can deal with that (the accusations). But those slurs – I’m not
going to cop sledging of Australia. I am not going to cop that on behalf of
Australians,” Prime Minister Morrison told reporters at the COP26 summit.

In September,
Australia cancelled a $37 billion deal with France to build 12 diesel-powered
submarines. Instead, Australia went for a defence pact with the United States
and the United Kingdom called AUKUS. With AUKUS, Australia will have access to
US’ nuclear submarine technology which will be equipped to deal with threats
from China.

Also Read | AUKUS ‘clumsy’, says Joe Biden in meeting with Emmanuel Macron

Cancelling the
deal, however, infuriated France, which said that it had been blindsided and
recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia.

At the G20 summit,
Australian media asked the French president about his response to the
developments over time, to which Macron said: “I have a lot of respect for your
country. I just say when we have respect, you have to be true and you have to
behave in line and consistently with this value.”

Scott Morrison,
meanwhile, has maintained that he did not wish to personalise the row and
acknowledged that France had taken offence but said that he had explained the
concerns about the submarine contract to Macron before the AUKUS deal went
through.

The AUKUS deal had
also caused a rift between France and the United States. The G20 summit saw US
President Joe Biden interact with Macron in a bid to ease tensions.