Do not forget Australia Morrison must hope an old friendship holds

In the quadrangle of the primary school in Villers-Bretonneux, northern France, soars a famous sign, painted green and gold.

“Do not forget Australia”, it says, reminding visitors that here exists one of Australia’s most enduring and solemn international friendships.

The sign recalls the 2400 Australian soldiers who lost their lives on the night of April 24, 1918, while recapturing the village from the forces of Germany and in so doing, turning the tide of World War I. It also honours the schoolchildren of Victoria who later donated their pennies to rebuild the village school.

The sign in the primary school quadrangle is a reminder of ties forged between the two countries more than a century ago. Credit:Tony Wright

There are reminders all over northern France of Australian blood in French soil from both World War I and World War II. On a hill above Villers-Bretonneux is the Australian National Memorial, its walls listing 11,000 names of Australian WWI soldiers still missing, each with no known grave.

For either nation to insult the other is, thus, a matter of consequence even a century on â€" particularly concerning matters military.

The decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to recall his nation’s ambassador from Australia after Prime Minister Scott Morrison suddenly trashed France’s submarine contract is an indication of extreme offence being taken.

It has happened only once before, in 1995, at a time when Australian-French relations were at their lowest ebb.

The Keating government, in protest at France’s continued nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia, cut the French Dassault fighter jet from the shortlist for a fleet of training aircraft for the RAAF.

At the time, relations were so strained the French government accused Australian authorities of allowing anti-nuclear demonstrators to deny diplomats entry to their embassy in Canberra; of stopping mail â€" including diplomatic bags â€" from reaching the embassy; and delaying French ships at Australian ports.

France’s ambassador to Australia, Dominique Girard, leaves Parliament House after being called in to see the acting Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Bob McMullan, in 1995 following the second French nuclear test in the South Pacific.Credit:Mike Bowers

The government of then-president Jacques Chirac ordered its ambassador recalled.

France, however, was on the back foot during that spat, suffering international condemnation for breaking a three-year moratorium on nuclear testing. Australia had also taken the diplomatic initiative by recalling its own ambassador from Paris two months previously.

This time France and President Macron â€" dudded by Morrison, US President Joe Biden and British PM Boris Johnson â€" have a much more clear-cut reason to feel aggrieved.

And the French President’s fury has to be taken seriously.

With the imminent retirement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Britain’s Brexit departure, the putative leadership of Europe is about to pass to Macron and France.

The European Union is the world’s largest trading bloc and represents one of the world’s largest economies. It is also Australia’s second-largest trading partner and second-largest source of investment.

Australia has been negotiating a free-trade agreement with the EU â€" a market of almost 450 million people and a GDP of about $15 trillion â€" since 2018.

As those negotiations inch towards conclusion, with all their implications for Australia’s post-pandemic economic recovery, Morrison might hope that Macron is not moved now by his vast indignation to dismiss from his mind that enduring sign at the Villers-Bretonneux school.

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