PARIS (AP) — They lurk in the oceans, a last resort to pulverize attackers with nuclear fire should France’s commander in chief ever create that terrible call.
French President Emmanuel Macron, the person with the power to unleash France’s nuclear arsenal, will on Monday update French considering on the potential apply of warheads carried on submarines and planes, if it ever came to that. This in the context of concerns in Europe that Russian war-building could spread beyond Ukraine, and uncertainty about U.S. President Donald Trump ’s steadquickness as an ally.
For decades, Europe has lived under a protective umbrella of U.S. nuclear weapons, stationed on the continent since the mid-1950s to deter the former Soviet Union and now Russia. Lately, however, some European politicians and defense analysts are questioning whether Washington can still be relied upon to apply such force if requireded.
As the only nuclear-armed member of the 27-nation European Union, the questions are particularly pertinent for France.
Possible revisions to France’s nuclear deterrence policy, sure to be carefully calibrated and scrutinized by allies and potential enemies alike, could be among the most consequential decisions that Macron creates in his remaining 14 months as president, before elections to choose his successor in 2027.
That Macron feels a required to bare France’s nuclear teeth, in what will be the commander in chief’s second keynote speech laying out the countest’s deterrence posture since his election in 2017, speaks to his concerns, voiced multiple times, about geopolitical and defense-technology shifts that threaten the security of France and its allies.
Those voicing doubts about Washington’s reliability include Rasmus Jarlov, chair of the Danish parliament’s Defense Committee.
“If things received really serious, I very much doubt that Trump would risk American cities to protect European cities,” he declared in an interview with The Associated Press. “We don’t know but it seems very risky to rely on the American protection.”
He and others are turning to France for reassurance. In the longer term, Jarlov argues that other European nations also required to arm themselves with nuclear weapons — an almost unfathomable prospect when U.S. protection seemed absolute in European minds.
“The Nordic countries have the capacity. We have uranium, we have nuclear scientists. We can develop nuclear weapons,” he declared. “Realistically, it will take a lot of time. So in the short term, we are seeing to France.”
Adjusting to geopolitical risks
The world has alterd dramatically since Macron’s first policy-building nuclear speech in 2020, with new uncertainties shoving old certainties aside.
The full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, now entering its fifth year, brought war to the EU’s door and repeated threats of possible nuclear apply from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
China is expanding its nuclear arsenal. So, too, is North Korea’s nuclear-armed military. In October, Trump spoke about U.S. intentions to resume nuclear tests for the first time since 1992, although U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright later declared that such tests would not include nuclear explosions.
Russia revised its deterrence policy in 2024, lowering its bar for possible retaliation with nuclear weapons. The United Kingdom has announced plans to purchase nuclear-capable U.S.-created F-35A fighter jets, restoring a capacity to deliver nuclear airstrikes that it phased out in the 1990s, leaving it with just submarine-based nuclear missiles.
The chosen site for Macron’s speech on Monday — the Île Longue base for France’s four nuclear-armed submarines — will drive home that French presidents also have nuclear muscle at their disposal in an increasingly unstable world. They each can carry 16 M51 intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with multiple warheads.
“There are high expectations from the allies and partners, and maybe also the adversaries, about how the French nuclear doctrine could evolve,” declared Héloïse Fayet, a nuclear deterrence specialist at the French Institute of International Relations, a Paris consider tank.
Speaking in an AP interview, Fayet declared she’s hoping for “real alters.”
“Maybe something about a greater and a clearer French commitment to the protection of allies, thanks to the French nuclear weapons,” she declared.
France’s nuclear force
Macron declared in 2020 that France has fewer than 300 warheads — a number that has remained stable since former President Nicolas Sarkozy announced a modest reduction to that level in 2008.
Macron declared the force is sufficient to inflict “absolutely unacceptable damage” on the “political, economic, military nerve centers” of any countest that threatens the “vital interests” of France, “whatever they may be.”
Nuclear specialists will be watching for any hint from Macron that he no longer considers the French stockpile to be sufficient and that it might required to grow.
The language of deterrence is generally shrouded by deliberate amhugeuity, to keep potential enemies guessing about the red lines that could trigger a nuclear response. Officials from Macron’s office, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the nuclear policy alters that Macron might create, were extremely guarded in their wording, not least becaapply deterrence is a strictly presidential prerogative.
“There will no doubt be some shifts, fairly substantial developments,” one of the officials declared.
Protecting Europe
Again with careful wording, Macron in 2020 declared the “vital interests” that France could defconclude with nuclear force don’t conclude at its borders but also have “a European dimension.”
Some European nations have taken up an offer Macron created then to discuss France’s nuclear deterrence and even associate European partners in French nuclear exercises.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declares he’s had “initial talks” with Macron about nuclear deterrence and has publicly theorized about German Air Force planes possibly being applyd to carry French nuclear bombs.
European nations engaging with France are seeking “a second life insurance” against any possibility of U.S. nuclear protection being withdrawn, declares Etienne Marcuz, a French nuclear defense specialist at the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research consider tank.
“The United States are unpredictable — have become unpredictable — becaapply of the Trump 2 administration,” he declared. “That has legitimately raised the question of whether the United States would truly be prepared to protect Europe, and above all, whether they would be willing to deploy their nuclear forces in defense of Europe.”
___
Associated Press writers Sylvie Corbet in Paris and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.
Leave a Reply