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| A DCNS Scorpene class Submarine (File Photo) |
A massive leak of secret data on French submarines is embarrassing, Australia's Defence Industry minister said Friday, stressing that security between Australia and the DCNS shipbuilders would be "the most stringent in the world".
The Australian newspaper reported this week that it had seen 22,400 leaked pages detailing the combat capability of the Scorpene-class DCNS submarine designed for the Indian navy.
Variants of the submarine are used by Malaysia and Chile, with Brazil due to deploy the vessels from 2018.
Australia awarded French contractor DCNS a Aus$50 billion (US$38 billion) contract last April to design and build its next generation of submarines.
"Obviously it is a very serious matter for the Indian navy and for the DCNS project," Australia's Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne told Channel Nine.
Pyne stressed that the leak had "no bearing at all on the Australian project" as Canberra has commissioned a different model to the Scorpene.
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