Mistral blows

EVEN before France signed a deal in 2011 to build two Mistral-class assault ships for Russia, the idea prompted widespread unease. Had Russia possessed such warships in 2008, boasted its naval chief, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, it would have won its war against Georgia in “40 minutes instead of 26 hours”. Russia’s neighbours were accordingly troubled, but so were France’s closest allies. In Paris before the deal, Robert Gates, then America’s defence secretary, had what he called a “thorough exchange of views” with the French: code for a serious disagreement.

Now, as the Ukraine crisis lurches on, the Mistral sale is creating fresh ructions. At a meeting in Washington with John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, this week, Laurent Fabius, France’s foreign minister, found himself forced to defend it. Earlier this month, Victoria Nuland, Mr Kerry’s assistant secretary, said she had “regularly and consistently expressed our concerns” about the sale. But Mr Fabius was having none of it. France, he said on May 13th, would take firmness lessons from nobody: “the rule with contracts is that contracts which have been signed are honoured.”

At a moment when Europe and America are trying to co-ordinate sanctions against Russia, the timing is nonetheless embarrassing. The mighty Mistral-class vessels, 199m long, are not gunships. But their capacity to carry and land hundreds of soldiers and over a dozen armoured tanks and amphibious craft, as well as to transport some 16 helicopters, greatly enhances power projection. The first of the two ships, named the Vladivostok, will be ready for delivery to Russia in October this year; the second, more pointedly named the Sevastopol, in mid-2015. Next month 400 Russian naval staff will arrive for training in Saint-Nazaire, the French Atlantic port where the vessels are being built.

There are 400 jobs directly at stake at the Saint-Nazaire shipyard (which also built the Queen Mary 2 cruise liner), and over 1,000 that depend on the contract. The French state has a 33% stake in STX France, the shipyard owner, and orders from the French navy help keep it in work. At a time when unemployment is high, President François Hollande can ill afford to put more jobs in peril. And breach of the €1.2 billion ($1.7 billion) contract would entail a fat penalty payment to Russia, which has already settled half the price. Hence France’s consistent refusal to contemplate anything other than completing construction as planned. The contract, Mr Hollande repeated on May 10th, “is not in doubt”.

Could this change? Officials in Paris suggest that the only circumstances in which France might reconsider delivery would be an agreement with its allies to move to deeper “third-stage” sanctions, in such sectors as energy, finance and defence. But, say the French, this would have to include equally tough measures by, for instance, Britain against Russian assets in London. “There is an enormous amount of French ill-will towards the way the British are seen as having lived off the fat of Russia’s oligarchs,” says François Heisbourg, of the Foundation for Strategic Research. “The French will resist any idea that they take a unilateral hit.”

The French government will take a final decision in October, when the first vessel is ready for delivery, says Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defence minister. America may disapprove, but there is little domestic pressure to cancel the order, despite the Ukraine crisis. Mr Hollande has not withdrawn his invitation to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to come to the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Normandy landings in June. There is almost no public or parliamentary debate in France over the warship sales, and both the political left and right are keeping quiet about any reservations they might have. Mr Hollande’s Socialist government wants to avoid a fresh fiasco over jobs and industry. And the centre-right opposition party is keenly aware that the original contract was won by its own leader and former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.