Hours after the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia announced the AUKUS – an Indo-Pacific security alliance that would develop an Australian nuclear-powered submarine fleet. France and New Zealand reacted. The two countries criticised the partnership, Paris calling it a ‘regrettable decision’.  France has also recalled its envoys from the US and Australia on Friday.

Unveiling the AUKUS, US President Joe Biden alongside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison joined him by video. The alliance will allow for greater sharing of defense capabilities. 

Why did France and New Zealand object?

French Minister of the Armed Forces Florence Parly and foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed France’s concerns with respect to the alliance. 

“The United States’ choice to exclude an European Union ally and partner such as France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region (…) shows a lack of coherence that France can only note and regret,” the press release read. 

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The sharp objection comes as with Australia decided to invest in US nuclear-powered submarines, it will be dumping  its contract with France to build diesel-electric submarines because of a ‘changed strategic environment’. 

Australia notified France that it would end its contract with state majority-owned DCNS to build 12 of the world’s largest conventional submarines. Australia has spent 2.4 billion Australian dollars ($1.8 billion) on the project since the French won the contract in 2016.

Australia PM Morrison said U.S nuclear submarine technology wasn’t an option open to Australia when the AU$56 billion ($43 billion) deal was struck in 2016. The United States had until now only shared the technology with Britain.

Morrison said he told French President Emanuel Macron in June that there were “very real issues about whether a conventional submarine capability” would address Australia’s strategic security needs in the Indo-Pacific.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on France-Info radio Thursday expressed “total incomprehension” at the move and criticized both Australia and the United States.

“It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed,” Le Drian said.

“I’m angry today. This is not done between allies,” he added. “We are demanding explanations from both sides.”

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Left out of the new alliance was Australia’s South Pacific neighbour New Zealand, which in the 1980s enacted policies and laws to ensure it remains nuclear-free. That includes a ban on nuclear-powered ships entering New Zealand ports, a stance which has seen it clash, at times, with the U.S.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday that New Zealand wasn’t asked to be part of the alliance and wouldn’t have expected an invitation.

“The centerpiece, the anchor of this arrangement are nuclear-powered submarines,” Ardern said. “And it will be very clear to all New Zealanders, and to Australia, why New Zealand would not wish to be a part of that project.”

Ardern said the new alliance didn’t diminish its close ties to the U.S., Britain, Australia and also Canada, which had been solidified through the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement.

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Washington termed the alliance as a ‘Cold-War mentality’. 

With inputs from the Associated Press