After a bilateral meeting, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at a joint press conference with visiting New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern not pictured in Sydney on June 10, 2022. DAVID GRAY AFP CANBERRA - Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed he will meet French President Emmanuel Macron in a bid to reset relations.
Albanese said Thursday night that he accepted Macron's invitation to visit France.
It comes weeks after Albanese announced that his new government had agreed to pay French shipbuilder Naval Group around 830 million Australian dollars about $573 million in compensation for a canceled submarine contract.
When the deal was scrapped by the former Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the relationship between Australia and France deteriorated.
Albanese, who defeated Morrison in the May 21 general election, said he expected a welcome in France.
I'm going to meet with President Macron in France and I'm going to do that in a week's time. He told Australian Broadcasting Corporation TV that we need to reset, we've already had very constructive discussions.
We can provide a relationship between our leaders that won't be leaked in order to make an opportunistic headline in the newspaper. He said that there was a lot of respect and honesty in the way we deal with each other.