A year or two ago there was a story that France was royally pissed at the Aussies because they chose American companies to build their submarines.
They probably did not want the submarines to up and surrender.
The Aussies were smart to back out of the deal with the French and go with US. The deal with the French was for diesel subs and these will be nuclear powered. And, of course, the French work culture is notoriously slow and no surprise, they were missing deadlines even in the early stages.