Just when France has not fully emerged from the shadow of being played by the United States, Britain and Australia, the United States has swung a knife behind France's back. On Friday (December 10), the U.S. government decided to sell four frigates to Greece, which also meant that the United States and France began to compete. In a statement, the U.S. State Department announced that it had approved a plan to sell four frigates and their equipment worth $6.9 billion; Washington also approved the modernization of Greece's MEKO-class frigates at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis signed an agreement in Paris in September, a pre-agreement to sell three French FDI series missile frigates to the Greek Navy. The contract involves three frigates to be built by the NAVAL Group in Lorient, France, and is expected to be delivered to the Greek Navy in 2025-2026. According to the original plan, Fahi will sign a formal agreement by the end of this year, with a contract amount of about 3 billion euros. In addition to the ships, the contract also involved weapons and equipment provided by MBDA (Aster anti-aircraft missiles, Exocet anti-ship missiles and torpedoes) and a three-year after-sales service.
It is clear that the U.S. approach is to upset the intentions reached between France and Greece, which is the second vicious tactic of the United States to stir up the Agreement on Nuclear Submarines between France and Australia in September. The U.S. side even stated that "Greece will sign an agreement with the winner of an international bid aimed at helping the Greek navy modernize." The U.S. approach is obviously to call france a challenge, implying that whoever has the better technical advantage will win fairly. If we place what the United States has done in the context of the recent international situation, we cannot find that the United States is clearly targeting France.
In September, the United States negotiated the signing of the Augustus Agreement with the United Kingdom and Australia, and the United States and Britain promised to help Australia build nuclear submarines. Australia directly tore up the agreement with France for more than 90 billion Australian dollars for 12 nuclear submarines, which also made France completely lose this large arms purchase order. Therefore, France is furious against the United States, Britain and Australia, of course, behind this is the result of the United States deliberately sacrificing France for its national strategic interests. Although France was very angry with the United States, due to the strength of the United States, France chose to swallow the final anger.
And just in September, France and Greece signed a pre-agreement, which is also a comfort for France, which has just lost its Australian submarine contract. But now it seems that the United States wants to rob France and Greece of the frigates, and it is obvious that the United States is blue in the eyes of France. It is worth noting. Just after U.S. President Joe Biden announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, France was the first European country to jump out and not follow the United States. On the 9th, Jean-Michel Blanquet, the French Minister of National Education, Youth and Sports, made it clear in an interview with local media that France would not join the so-called "diplomatic boycott" of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and the officials in charge of sports affairs of the department would represent France at the Winter Olympics.
FDI HN guided missile frigate flying the Greek flag
Obviously, France itself is the representative of European countries, and if France does not follow the US diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics, it will basically affect the position of the entire European countries. And Germany has never expressed its desire to follow the US diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics, which shows that the posture of France and Germany has represented the whole of Europe. If Europe, as America's most loyal ally, is unwilling to follow the United States in diplomatic boycott, then it will be pointless for the United States to lead the rest of the world in diplomatic boycott. Obviously, the face of the United States has been swept up by France, so how can this be tolerated by the United States, which is now a small belly?
On the other hand, France signed an arms purchase agreement with the United Arab Emirates, and the Rafale fighters once again won orders for 80 aircraft, with a total value of $16 billion. This is a super big order for the French military industry, after all, the export of the Rafale fighter jet did not receive an order for 80 aircraft at a time. The profits obtained by the French military industry are naturally not bandits, and the price of a single machine is close to 200 million US dollars. After all, for the US arms interest groups, as competitors, they do not want european arms groups to get more arms orders. Since France has signed a large order of up to $16 billion, the Purchase intention of frigates signed with Greece is naturally also intended to pry.
French Rafale fighter
Now the United States wears small shoes for France and tries to grab French orders, which is obviously revenge on France, but such words cannot be directly disclosed to the public. France wants a new ship purchase deal with Greece, which makes the United States feel that France's cake is too much. France should not be allowed to obtain so many military orders, and the United States should take some measures against France. Let France know that it cannot offend the United States, let alone occupy more of the cake in the international arms market. Judging from the statement of the US State Department, the United States is ready to take over the Order for Greek Frigates!
I'm afraid that the biggest headache now is France, and the United States is so clear that it does not talk about martial arts. Robbing the French and Australian orders for submarines, and now coming to grab the French and Greek frigate orders, this is clearly incompatible with France. The current posture of the United States is the psychology of a villain, and France, which is not in the interests of the United States, will be treated with small shoes, so that France knows who is the boss in the world. It seems that France is right to advocate withdrawing from NATO, and such a mercenary country as the United States, such an unreasonable bully, really does not deserve France to join in its bandwagon. (The picture in this article comes from the network)