The French president, Emmanuel Macron, says the submarine deal with Australia is not just a contract but has lifted the two countries’ broader economic relationship to its highest level ever.

The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, flew with Macron on the French leader’s Falcon jet from the G20 summit in Hamburg to Paris and he and Lucy Turnbull dined at the palace on Saturday night.

Turnbull is heading to Cherbourg on Sunday where he and France’s armed forces minister, Florence Parly, will open an Australian office to guide the submarine project.

In December last year, Australia and France formally sealed a $50bn agreement under which the French naval contractor DCNS (now known as Naval Group) will build a new fleet of diesel-electric submarines based on its nuclear Barracuda. The French firm beat bidders from Japan and Germany.

Speaking at a joint media conference in Paris with Turnbull, Macron said the bilateral relationship had never been as intense as now, due to the submarine contract.

“It is not simply a contract,” he said. The decision had national, international and strategic outcomes, as well as providing work for Australian industry, he said.

“As president of the republic, I will do everything to ensure that we make the necessary arrangements to meet the requirements of this contract but, more broadly, to accompany you in this strategic partnership.”

Turnbull told reporters the submarine program was the “largest and most ambitious military project in Australia’s history”.

“The future submarine project is a multi-generational project. It is a national enterprise. And it is one where we [are] working together, our two nations side-by-side as our forebears did so long ago.”

The former prime minister Tony Abbott has controversially argued a plan B involving nuclear-powered submarines should be considered alongside the French project. However, the government has rejected such an approach.

The project has not been without controversy. In early 2016 DCNS was left reeling after details from more than 22,000 pages of documents relating to submarines it is building for India were published in the Australian newspaper, leading to concerns about the company’s ability to protect sensitive data.

However, the government is confident processes have been improved,

Turnbull also hailed the G20 summit in Hamburg as a success in backing free trade and tackling violent extremism online.

The final statement from the summit exposed a divide between the US president, Donald Trump, and other G20 members on the Paris climate accord but they all agreed to support open markets.

“We will keep markets open ... and continue to fight protectionism including all unfair trade practices and recognise the role of legitimate trade defence instruments in this regard,” the statement said.

Turnbull said G20 members had produced a document with “the endorsement of all of the nations and the leaders around the table”.

“[We share] a commitment to the rules-based international order, a commitment to free trade and open markets, a commitment to those values that have enabled us to deliver for our part in Australia 26 years of continuous economic growth,” Turnbull said.

The prime minister’s key contribution to the final communique was convincing leaders to back a statement on extending the rule of law to terrorism on the internet.



The G20 host, the German chancellor Angela Merkel, said she was pleased all members besides the US had agreed the Paris climate accord was “irreversible”.

“I think it’s very clear that we could not reach consensus but the differences were not papered over, they were clearly stated,” she said at the end of the two-day meeting.

A report on a commitment made at the Brisbane G20 summit – to achieve an extra 2% economic growth by 2018 – found “slower than expected implementation means it is likely that our collective growth ambition will be achieved later than originally anticipated”.

However, it was expected the long-term impact would be a better than 2% result.

Australia’s new commitments noted in the report included a new $1.5bn Skilling Australians Fund, continuing “accommodative” monetary policy, the Gonski schools funding model and $70bn in transport infrastructure.

Missing from the final communique was any statement on North Korea.

China and Russia effectively vetoed any criticism of the rogue state’s missile tests, arguing the G20 should be kept as a primarily economic forum.

The prime minister in talks with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, urged China to impose sanctions “thoroughly” but noted the Chinese felt their influence over North Korea was “not as great as others assert”.

In a meeting with Moon Jae-in, he reassured the South Korean president of Australia’s commitment to ensuring peace on the peninsula.