A Stab in the Back

“A stab in the back” says France’s Foreign Minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Our entente with France peaked in 1520 at a summit between Henry VIII (UK) and Francis I (FR) dubbed the Field of the Cloth of Gold. It patched things up after an interminable, I think a hundred years is interminable, war. More wars followed and even a cautious rapprochement in the Crimea in the middle of the 19th century did not heal old wounds. But I digress because we must look at our relationship recently; remember the cooperation on grands projets: Concorde, Airbus, the tunnel. But when English sparkling wines beat Grandes Marques champagnes the game was afoot. Now perfidious Albion has snatched a contract to build a dozen submarines for Australia from the French maw.

A few years ago I was asked to Alderney on a family holiday. We stayed at Fort Clonque and having walked round the island and boated over to Sark needed to do something else. We went to Cherbourg and went inside the Redoutable, a decommissioned, obviously, French ballistic missile submarine. It was only taken out of service in 1991.

It is, Wiki thinks, the only whole nuclear submarine that’s open to the public. A few small things have stuck in my mind. The sub had a bakery; officers and men were segregated, the former had a Mess Room with alcohol; the captain’s cabin had a huge white leather swivel chair and a cocktail shaker, the only thing missing was the white cat.

On a tour everybody asks the same question – how does the captain know an instruction to fire a nuclear ballistic missile is authentic? Apparently, incroyable I know, he would inform his deputy and they would both press the button. I guess China should be happy the new Australian nuclear submarines are going to have US/UK protocols; so it won’t be goodnight Shanghai after the crew has said g’day to a Chardonnay.