The reception could hardly have been warmer when Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared in France’s ornate foreign ministry building on a late June day alongside his French counterpart.

Blinken delighted his audience by beginning his remarks in fluent French, which a local interviewer would later brand “absolutely perfect,” and reminiscing about the more than 10 years he spent living in Paris. He joked about how he binge-watches French television shows such as “Le Bureau des Légendes” (“The Bureau”) and “Dix Pour Cent” (“Call My Agent!”).

Paris, he concluded, is “my second home.”

But Blinken will make an awkward return there this week, when he arrives for a long-scheduled meeting of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a trip that will conveniently double as a chance to further soothe French anger over a minor diplomatic crisis that erupted last month over Australia’s submarine purchase.

French officials found themselves blindsided when the news leaked in the Australian media that the United States and Britain were going to help Australia deploy a new fleet of nuclear submarines, replacing a $66 billion contract Australia had signed with a French contractor for a dozen attack submarines.

US and Australian officials say that deal was already on the rocks, partly because France’s diesel submarines have a shorter range and are more easily detectable than the nuclear ones that America and Britain can provide.

Despite that explanation, officials in Paris fumed about backstabbing and betrayal. French President Emmanuel Macron even recalled the country’s ambassador to the United States from Washington for several days.

The anger has already subsided. US President Joe Biden placed a contrite call to Macron last month; Blinken has conceded that the United States could have handled the matter more gracefully; and the French ambassador is already back in Washington.

But the diplomatic row hit Blinken especially hard, according to people familiar with his reaction, given his deep attachment to France. Blinken’s mother still lives in Paris, and hosted a dinner in his honor during his June visit there. He also retains an emotional investment in the ups and downs of France’s national soccer team.

His arrival at the State Department’s Foggy Bottom headquarters was greeted in France with elation, and taken as assurance that Paris would be first among equals as the Biden administration vowed to rebuild Western European alliances corroded under President Donald Trump.