Sandrine Prioul with Thibaud Hue 6:43 a.m., September 17, 2021, modified at 6:47 a.m., September 17, 2021

The "contract of the century", relating to the purchase of submarines from France by Australia, will deprive Paris of 35 billion euros.

But there are other collateral victims.

In Cherbourg, a bilingual school risks losing many students and employees with the departure of Australian engineers.

REPORTING

"We are really collateral victims."

In Cherbourg, Séverine Chesnel Baudry does not hide her disappointment.

She is the director of a bilingual French-English Montessori school.

And for her, the "contract of the century" signed between France and Australia for the purchase of conventional submarines to the tune of 35 billion euros was a godsend.

Dozens of Australians, mostly engineers, had put their bags here for at least three years, enrolling their children in school.

Everything has just collapsed with the brutal cancellation of the contract on Wednesday, Canberra having finally preferred to buy American equipment.

"It's very violent"

"We had not created this school specifically for Australians but clearly, it is a bilingual school, it is an opening, a desire to open up a little Cherbourg", points Séverine Chesnel Baudry, who fears the flight of families. "It's very violent. [The children] take lessons, they progress in French. Some children had a little trouble integrating. Finally, we did this work, and now we have to start all over elsewhere. is very hard. "

In this establishment, a quarter of the mothers and half of the employees are Australian.

Some are women engineers, who came to settle at the end of the Cotentin, 20,000 kilometers from Adelaide, their place of life, and had found a job as an English teacher, organized the Australian National Day.

On Wednesday, they fell from the clouds. 

Naval Group prohibits employees and their families from speaking

These women, their husbands too, wanted to tell their incomprehension and cry out their anger Thursday morning ... until Naval Group, the flagship of the naval industry which has just lost its juicy contract, dissuades them.

Too many diplomatic and financial issues ...

So only Séverine Chesnel Baudry remained on Thursday to tell about the void that the Australians' departure will create. "It's a halt," blows the one whose school now coexisted with a specific branch of the Alliance Française. The headmistress now only hopes for one thing: to soon hear the parents of the pupils announce to her that they have chosen to extend their stay in France.