The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, announced this Monday that the country will increase the number of nuclear warheads, and advanced closer cooperation with a group of eight European Union countries (EU) to protect the continent.
“A modernization of our arsenal is essential,” he said from the Île Longue nuclear submarine base in France. “That is why he ordered an increase in the number of nuclear warheads,” he added.
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“We must strengthen our nuclear deterrent against multiple threats, and we must consider our deterrence strategy deep within the European continent,” Macron said.
In this way, he announced “the gradual implementation of what I would call advanced deterrence.”
Macron claimed that eight European countries had agreed to participate in the “advanced” nuclear deterrence scheme proposed by France.
Among those countries would be Germany, the United Kingdom and Poland.
The countries of that group will be able to host French “strategic air forces”, which will be able to “deploy throughout the European continent.”
According to Macron, the idea is to “complicate the calculations of our adversaries.”
The scheme could also involve “the conventional participation of allied forces in our nuclear activities.”
France has the fourth largest nuclear arsenal, estimated at about 290 warheads.
The Île Longue naval base is home to the four ballistic missile submarines from France: the Triomphant, the Téméraire, the Vigilant and the Terrible.
At least one of them is permanently at sea to ensure nuclear deterrence.
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