Naval Group will send invoices to Australia “in a few weeks”

The CEO of the group, initially in charge of supplying the submarines to Australia, assured that he was going by his own volition to “legalize all rights” of his company in the matter.

The French industrialist Naval Group will make a “detailed and quantitative proposal” to Australia “in a few weeks” after the huge contract breach to build 12 submarines, for “the already incurred and ensuing costs”, its CEO Pierre Eric indicated. Pomelet in Dia Le Figaro.

“Australia terminated the contract for ‘convenience’, which also means we are not ‘at fault’, he explained. This is a matter which is provided in the contract and which will lead to payment of our expenses and future costs, related to physical ‘monetisation’ of infrastructure and IT as well as reclassification of employees. (…) We will claim all our rights,” added the leader.

The Naval Group was selected by Canberra in 2016 to supply 12 conventional (non-nuclear) propulsion submarines acquired from the French Barracuda nuclear submarines, which France is beginning to acquire.

31 billion euros

The total amount of the contract, of which only the first phase was concluded, was 50 billion Australian dollars (31 billion euros) at the time of signing, or $90 billion taking into account inflation over the duration of the program and cost escalation.

Described in France as the “contract of the century”, it was the largest ever contract for defense equipment signed by both a French industrialist and Australia.

But on 15 September, Australia announced that it was breaking this contract with the United States and the United Kingdom to acquire nuclear-powered submarines as part of a new partnership in the Indo-Pacific region. – United.

“This decision was announced with unbelievable cruelty, without any notice to us,” said Eric Pomelet in Le Figaro’s column.

According to him, “under no circumstances” has the Naval Group been asked to offer Australia the Barracuda-class nuclear attack submarines, the latest generation of this type. “Such a matter can be dealt with only at the highest level of the state”, he affirms.

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