Top American diplomat Blinken grilled on French television

Three weeks after an underwater crisis threw Franco-American relations into free fall, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – who was later toasted on French television and said “we expected better from you”.

The US foreign minister was not scheduled to meet with Macron, who has avoided US officials since Australia unexpectedly canceled a € 56 billion French submarine contract in favor of an Indo-Pacific pact with the United States and Great Britain.

Speaking on France 2 on Tuesday evening, Blinken – who once lived in Paris and speaks fluent French – conceded that Washington “should have done better in terms of communication.”

France described the covert way the three-way alliance was formed as a “stab in the back”, at one point recalling its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra.

Journalist Anne-Sophie Lapix underlined France’s anger, incomprehension and sense of betrayal in their interview filmed at the OECD headquarters in Paris.

” You speak French. You are a Francophile. We expected a better dialogue… especially with the change of administration, and especially with you.

A friend “taken for granted”
Blinken adopted a conciliatory tone, saying his one-on-one talks with Macron and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian – who he said was “a personal friend” – have been productive.

“We sometimes tend to take for granted a relationship as important, as deep as that between France and the United States,” he conceded.

Blinken also acknowledged that France and the United States were still “in the early stages” of repairing their relationship, adding that his visit was “by no means the end of this process.”

Going further, Blinken said the United States wanted to see deepened communication and cooperation on issues concerning the Indo-Pacific, the Sahel and the Euro-Atlantic area.

“There is now a very important opportunity following the work entrusted to us by our two presidents,” he said.

With US President Joe Biden and Macron scheduled to meet later this month, Tuesday’s talks appear to have defined areas of interest where the two countries could find common ground.