In a key passage in his recent Sorbonne speech, French President Emmanuel Macron insisted that Russia must absolutely not win its war of aggression against Ukraine. To meet the threat posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear weapons, he argued that Europe needed its own nuclear defenses. And on that front, he said, France could play a vital role. […]
France, meanwhile, has more nuclear weapons than the U.K., with most of its warheads deployed in its Le Triomphant-class submarines, and others on carrier or land-based aircraft. However, France has never “declared” or “assigned” its nuclear weapons to NATO. French nuclear weapons are there to defend France alone, and until recently, French governments never pretended otherwise.
To really understand what Macron was getting at in his Sorbonne speech, though, we must recall his Elysée speech from 2020, where he mentioned the use of French nuclear weapons. In that statement, Macron implied France might use them to defend European allies. […]
Without the U.S., Europe would simply have no in-kind response to Russia’s use of tactical nuclear weapons. And despite having a larger nuclear arsenal than the U.K., this would be the main factor that would militate against France launching a nuclear strike on Russia in defense of allies. Russia simply wouldn’t believe France would launch nuclear strikes against its cities in response to tactical nuclear strikes by Russia on, say, military bases in the Baltics.
The nuclear umbrellas of France and Britain are real enough — but the truth is, they’re only wide enough to cover France and the U.K. Läs artikel