France will expand its nuclear arsenal and will potentially allow European partners to host its aircraft on nuclear deterrence missions, President Emmanuel Macron has said, signalling a major doctrine change for France and the continent.<\/p>\n
Though France and Britain are both nuclear powers, most European countries have relied primarily on \u200cthe United States for deterring any potential adversaries \u2014 a decades-old pillar of transatlantic security. But Trump\u2019s rapprochement with Russia on the Ukraine war and his harsher posture towards traditional allies have rattled European governments, and some countries have expressed interest in how Paris could protect them by extending its nuclear umbrella.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are currently experiencing a period of geopolitical upheaval fraught with risk,\u201d Macron said in a speech delivered from a submarine base in Brittany, adding that a hardening \u200cof the French deterrence \u200cmodel was needed. Unveiling the \u2060update to France\u2019s nuclear doctrine, a once-per-term ritual for presidents, Macron promised more co-operation with European allies that \u200bhave expressed interest.<\/p>\n
Germany, but also Greece, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Sweden would be able to take part in French nuclear wargames.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe I can say our partners are ready,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n
Still, Macron gave no details on how the enhanced nuclear drive would be funded, while making clear decision-making on nuclear strikes will remain solely in the hands of the French president.<\/p>\n
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a joint statement with Macron that France \u2060and Germany had established a nuclear steering group to discuss deterrence issues and would \u200cstart concrete cooperation \u200bthis year.<\/p>\n
That would include participation by conventional German forces in French nuclear exercises and joint visits to strategic sites, as well as the development of \u200bnon-nuclear capabilities with France \u200cand other European partners.<\/p>\n
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on X Poland was in talks \u201cwith France and a group of closest European \u200ballies on the programme of advanced nuclear deterrence\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are arming up together with our friends so that our enemies will never dare to attack us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The French leader said it would be possible to establish, under unspecified circumstances, strategic assets in other European countries that \u200bwould \u200bbe part of what he called a new \u201cforward deterrence\u201d \u200bdoctrine. \u201cOur strategic air forces could be spread deep into the European continent,\u201d \u200cMacron said, without giving more details.<\/p>\n
Although the size of France\u2019s nuclear arsenal is based on a strategy of \u201cstrict sufficiency\u201d, the number of French warheads will be increased, Macron said.<\/p>\n
France spends roughly 5.6 billion euros ($A8.53 billion) a year to maintain its stockpile of 290 submarine- and air-launched weapons \u2014 the world\u2019s fourth-largest arsenal. Britain has 225 nuclear warheads. Russia and the United States have more than 5,000 each.<\/p>\n
Macron said close ties on nuclear deterrence will continue with Britain. He \u200balso said the current rethink of French nuclear doctrine has been done in total transparency with Washington, and was complementary to NATO\u2019s nuclear \u200bmission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France will expand its nuclear arsenal and will potentially allow European partners to host its aircraft on nuclear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-843942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116275996526162719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}