Reference :- According to what we see on Sky News , the French are pretending to be annoyed with Australia .

 Reference:-   Sky News  believes that cancelling a contract for submarines worth 90 billion quid  shouldn't have upset the French .  

Our favorite media outlet has revealed that the " spiteful French " are looking for any pathetic excuse to denounce Australia  .  After all , why is a 90 billion quid contract so important ?  Apparently the rest of the European Union is also annoyed with us ,  even though it is clearly none of their business . 

Sky Reply contributing editor ,  Monte  , has done some research which has highlighted the foolishness of the French . 

Apparently back in 2016 , when we ordered the French subs , we were adamant that we didn't want nuclear versions . That meant that the French had to redesign their nuclear subs to produce a non- nuclear version called the Shortfin Barracuda class .   Monte reckons the plan may have been to power them with left over diesel engines from the now defunct Holden plant .  Suitably hotted up , of course .

 But time has passed , and we have now decided that we do want nuclear subs after all .  Since the war in Afghanistan has ended ( sort of ),  defense contractors in the USA have considerable spare manufacturing capacity  , so we might as well get them to supply us some nuclear subs . 

The beauty of this arrangement is that there are no cost estimates , and no specified delivery dates . This means that taxpayers won't be able to complain about cost blow outs or delays .

 The French are upset  because we broke our deal with them .  But everybody knows they can sell their diesel retrofitted Shortfin Barracuda  subs elsewhere .  For starters New Zealand would buy them . The Kiwis won't allow nuclear subs in their waters , so diesel powered ones are just what they need . Furthermore ,  Monte reckons Holden engines are highly regarded on the other side of the Tasman Sea . 

This whole fiasco would never have occurred if we had not done a deal with the French in the first place .

Sadly , I don't think the French are capable of accepting a setback , and moving on .    

But c'est la vie . 

Your comrade , Ken .