Originally Posted by
Gnadenburg
It has been apparent for a number of years the French were not delivering on offsets and work for local companies. As well, the final capability was questionable and loaded with more and more risks, with a project blow-out from 50 billion to 90 billion AUD, which was always going to be terminal once our Allies onside with nuclear propulsion. Below is an excerpt from today's newspaper The Australian.
"Mr Hamilton-Smith said the deal with the French started with a commitment to 90 per cent of the work being done locally, which dropped to 80, then 70 and “after quite a scuffle” to 60 per cent."
Looking at those facts it is not so surprising that the Alternative of a combination of a Security alliance and more capable Subs was attractive enough to switch horses. That the French didn't see that coming is to quite some extent their own fault. That said, French Companies tend to act similarly when having taken over foreign Companies - they exploit and marginalise them so that the French locations get the Cherry Picking while the foreign entities take the hit. The French Government tends to back such activties up whereas other Countries Governments typically don't intervene, so the big French Companies are not used to negative impact when they try to exploit other companies or state institutions. In the short term, French Companies are often benefitting from this but in the longer run the French Industry as a whole has lost competitiveness.
This time -it seems- they gambled too high and didn't see the writing on the wall.
For Australia it is a win- win. For France it hurts in multiple ways: Loss of Influence in the Asia Pacific Theater. Loss of a big Deal. Loss of reputation (massive Price increase, drop of local share, way of dealing with unhappiness of customer). And all this after multiple other Military Programs that shared some of these problems. The planned phase- out and replacement of the Tiger helicopters was a clear warning. They should try to learn from this instead of acting as a petulant child.