‘Get a grip’: British PM urges France to move on from AUKUS row

Boris Johnson tells Paris to ‘give me a break’ amid French fury over new security pact between UK, US and Australia.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged France to “get a grip” after Paris spent days reacting furiously to being sidelined by a new security pact brokered between the United Kingdom, United States and Australia.

Johnson on Wednesday praised the trio’s agreement, which led to Australia scrapping a multibillion-dollar deal with France to build conventional submarines, as a “fundamentally great step forward for global security”.

Australia will instead acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines with US and British technology as part of the new trilateral security deal for the Indo-Pacific region, dubbed AUKUS.