On Sept. 15 Naval Group members Pierre-Eric Pommellet was delighted with a long-awaited letter from an Australian government official stating that the company had completed a key role in a multi-billion dollar water deal when he received a call telling him that all work was in progress. it was dead.
An Indo-Pacific security agreement was signed between the US, the UK and Australia when Washington offered nuclear weapons that kept the French fleet under control, the head of the state security company was told.
The Franco-Australian naval alliance “was not just a program, it was a transformation of the company, we were introducing the Naval Group into a new world,” Pommellet told the Financial Times. “It changed in France too. And so everything that is happening today is difficult. It is difficult for this team.”
Some parts of the Australian government appear to have been identified – which is why Kalata is unfortunate, Pommellet said.
The alliance will cost money to the Naval Group, as well as to a lesser extent Thales, which owns 35% of the state-owned defense company and has its own contract to supply electricity. Safran, France’s third largest defense company, tasked with research and development, said it was “investigating the negatives” of the end of its business.
The loss is bad news for French defenders who are being sent abroad. Although there has been an increase in recent years due in large part to Dassault Aviation and the Naval Group, despite the Australian agreement, the rules were reduced to eight years last year, according to the Ministry of Defense. It comes two months after the Swiss government elected Lockheed Martin’s F-35 against a rivalry from Dassault’s Rafale and Eurofighter.
Sash Tusa, an inspector for security and safety at Agency Partners in London, said people fell into two camps when it came to what led to the failure of the agreement: those who believe it was the result of a “British-US alliance”, and those who say it happened. due to Naval Group errors. “Maybe he’s in the middle,” Tusa said.
At the port of Normandy in Cherbourg, where French ships are to be built, the controversy has taken its toll on the people and has made them proud. “We are aware that this could affect the reputation of the Naval Group,” said José Baptista, a coalition member. “That’s why we try to say that this has nothing to do with our work and we are doing everything we can to help lose Australian business and new contracts.”
In addition to the € 840m Naval Group which received the shares already in place, the agreement would have made about € 500m in annual salaries, or 10% of the total amount, for “future years”, according to Pommellet. “It’s a big problem,” he said. “But. . . the world is so big and so many people are interested in what we are doing. ”
President Emmanuel Macron will work to ensure the following: Tuesday announces $ 3bn donation agreement Three Belharra shots in Greece. The ships will be built in France by the Naval Group. The Greek treaty represented “a vote of confidence and a reflection of the kind offered by France”, he said.
France also announced this week that it would sell 52 Caesar guns in the Czech Republic for 257 million euros.
The Thales also need to preserve their history. The day after the agreement called the Aukus, the group told investors it had no problem and confirmed its findings in 2021.
The company received about 65m million in annual payments before the interest and taxes generated by the Naval Group epidemic. Thales said the maximum amount that can be earned each year from a water contract through its price in the Naval Group was € 30m, which still represents a certain segment. Profits of € 2bn per year in 2019.
Thales can also sell electronic equipment to Lockheed Martin. Although the U.S. defense giant was supposed to develop weapons of war under the French alliance, some researchers believe he could remain a trader as part of the Aukus alliance.
However, the decline of the Naval Group’s naval partnership, as well as the loss of security in France, could hinder the growth of Thales in Australia, which has become a major market for the company in recent years, some have said.
“Whether he likes it or not, this is a black mark for the Armed Forces,” Tusa said. And, for Thales stands for “market loss in the Australian market, which removes the wind in its journeys”.
However Thales said this was a “misunderstanding”.
“It should be noted that Thales Australia, with its 3,800 personnel operating in 12 major locations, is an Australian company, the country’s security chief” and has been “a trusted ally of the Australian military for over 30 years,” the spokesman said.
While the financial information on the payroll agreement is being verified by lawyers in Paris and Canberra, French security companies are looking at a deal in Europe, highlighting Macron’s persuasion to form a EU-linked partnership. Security experts have been demanding that European security agencies be included, in part to help boost national budgets but governance issues have been difficult to resolve.
“Europe needs to get closer together,” said a French official.
Announcing 8bn euro in EU security over the next six years, Hervé Grandjean, a spokesman for the French Ministry of Defense, said that the break-up agreement should “lead us to.. Strengthen our cooperation with European countries”. .
But their EU counterparts are skeptical. Christian Mölling, director general of the Berlin Council of Foreign Relations, based in Berlin, said the negotiations for the parties to the agreement “have been going on for 30 years and no one has included it”.
The French, he added, “will not be willing to combine what they see as the gemstones of their security companies”.