If Europeans can no longer count on the guarantee of American deterrence, France said it has been ready to assume the role of carrier of the nuclear umbrella. During his visit to Portugal from February 28, Emmanuel Macron has renewed its proposal for a strategic dialogue with its European partners on the extension of French deterrence. It is for Europe, according to the chief of the French armies, of“Advance towards greater autonomy and deterrence capacities” properly European.
An idea likely to enhance the coat of arms of French power on the continent, but which set fire to the powders within the French opposition. Many castigate this choice: for Marine Le Pennuclear deterrence must remain “French” and there is no question of “Share it”,, “Even less (of) delegate it ”. In general, the rebellious leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls to obstruct the Europe of Defense, which “Is not the priority” Faced with climate change.
At the beginning of March, the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu has given details, ensuring that nuclear deterrence “Will remain” French “Design (has) the production of our weapons, until their implementation by decision of the President of the Republic ”. There is therefore a distinction to operate between a shared European deterrence and a French nuclear deterrence extended to Europe. It was this second option which had received the assent of General de Gaulle in 1963, when signing the Treaty of the Élysée, sealing the Franco-German reconciliation.
De Gaulle: Faced with the weight of history, the weapon of national independence
At De Gaulle, the desire to have nuclear weapons is inseparable from the quest for national independence. The French bomb had its imperative: that of washing the affront suffered during the debacle of May 1940. This is where the French nuclear program has its origin: in the trauma of the defeat of the French army in the face of the attack on the Wehrmacht. The humiliation suffered in Suez in 1956, where France was broken down by American power (alongside the United Kingdom)) Following the atomic threat brandished by the Soviet Union, will further accentuate the French will to acquire the atomic weapon in turn to depend only on itself. The possession of nuclear fire appearing as the safest means for France to rebuild itself and acquire a credible national defense in the eyes of theEurope and the world.
“Nation-life insurance” and a guarantee of respectability, it propelled France among the powers that count, alongside the UNITED STATES and the USSR, while guaranteeing the sanctuarization of the national territory. This is what General Pierre Marie Gallois called the deterrence of “Low at the fort by the equalizing power of the atom”. A state endowed with nuclear fire, whatever its size, demography, economic or diplomatic weight, is a power which must be taken into account – evidenced by the example of the example of the example of North Korea.
French doctrine “Chemically pure”as qualified by diplomat Nicolas Roche, is intended to be exclusively defensive: it is based on a capacity of “strict sufficiency”. It is a question of reserving the use of nuclear weapons for a strict role of response (massive) in the event of aggression of the national territory or of the French vital interests.
However, from the 1960s, a European dimension was brought to French nuclear doctrine. In 1964, General de Gaulle judged that France was not an isolated power, that it should “Feeling threatened as soon as the territories of Federal Germany and Benelux are violated”. A formula recorded a few years later in the 1972 defense white paper: “France lives in a fabric of interests which exceeds its borders (…) Western Europe cannot therefore fail to benefit, indirectly from the French strategy which constitutes a stable and decisive factor of security in Europe. »» Can we read. In short, this is the enunciation of the European dimension of French deterrence. The French nuclear weapon therefore has in truth, from the outset, an opening to Europe, without will to sell off national sovereignty.
Emmanuel Macron: autonomous deterrence to protect Europe
“Our vital interests include a European dimension”. This assertion of President Macron, hammered by the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu, therefore seems to take over the Gaullian narrative, whose ambition was to make French deterrence the spearhead of European collective security.
For Olivier Zajec, professor of universities in political science at Jean Moulin Lyon III University, where he heads the Institute of Strategy and Defense Studies (IESD), this French proposal should receive a very special echo with regard to the uncertain strategic context in which Europe has been plunged from the war in Ukraine. European security architecture, Brinquebalant, is also upset by the American disengagement announced by the Trump administration. European countries, “After spending years to deal with contempt the French concept of strategic autonomy, suddenly discover that they are (…) absolutely dependent on an external power to the European continent (…), more and more divided by gravissimal (and) cultural polarizations (and) whose guidelines of foreign policy can change radically every four years”succession Olivier Zajec.
For Paris, the opportunity is therefore “Tressing” To want to secure European defense, hitherto taken care of by the American nuclear umbrella, to French deterrence. The weakening of NATO also gives credit to the historic position of France. However, it is American nuclear deterrence that has “The most fully an explicit dimension of” collective “umbrella”, wrote Olivier Zajec, in an article published last year in the review International Defense and Security. “As long as you believe that Washington will risk New York to save Warsaw”,, he said. It all depends on the confidence that European countries give to the American ally.
Beyond the major start that it would imply for the European nations, the French proposal faces another challenge. There Confidence in an “enlarged” deterrence will always remain less strong than that in purely national deterrence, because the nuclear weapon remains, ultimately, the prerogative of national sovereignty. “As early as 1957, Kissinger had said everything that this widen” belief in deterrent “implied in terms of shoulder between conventional, nuclear” tactical “and strategic nuclear” deterrence “advance olivier zajec. So, For the academic, the security of Europeans, even guaranteed by an extended French deterrence, can hardly do without a credible conventional deterrence of the European armies. On this last point, the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army recalled to Europeans an old Latin adage: If screw pacem, para bellum (“If you want peace, prepare war”).
