“To be feared you have to be powerful”

Emmanuel Macron has just 14 months left to run out of his mandate. But before leaving the Elysee Palace, the French president wants to make sure that France continues being a pillar of European security, especially in the delicate field of nuclear deterrence.

For this reason, this Monday, Macron presented theto new atomic doctrine French from the naval base of Long Islandin Brittany, where the country’s four nuclear ballistic missile submarines are stationed, the only one in the EU with atomic weapons. During his speech, the French president announced that he would “increase the number of nuclear warheads” in France but indicated that he would not detail how many. “To be feared, you have to be powerful”he has sentenced.

“We must consider our deterrence strategy in the heart of the European continent, with full respect for our sovereignty, but with the progressive implementation of what I would call advanced deterrence,” he announced at the beginning of his speech. This is a continuation of the speech he gave in 2020, during his first term, in which he already proposed to European partners to open a strategic dialogue on collective security.

But the context now is very different. To the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, four years after its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Now the conflict in the Middle East is added, where Paris has promised to act against Iran if necessary. In addition, China is increasing its nuclear arsenal—it is estimated that it will reach around 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030—and the United States military umbrella, which for decades has served as protection, is no longer a completely reliable refuge. “We can no longer consider threats in isolation,” declared the French head of state.

The European umbrella

France is the only nuclear-armed member of the European Union, with nearly 300 officially declared nuclear warheads. And although it is part of NATO, it maintains complete sovereignty over its nuclear arsenal. That is, in times of peace, it is not integrated into the defense of the allies.

In this sense, since his arrival at the Elysee Palace, Macron has promoted a “comprehensive renovation” of its nuclear forces. Furthermore, it has promoted the “European dimension” of its deterrence, based on the idea that Paris considers that European security is part of France’s vital interests and that, therefore, the region should benefit from the coverage of its atomic weapons. Ultimately, it is about expanding coverage.

Recently, Germany, immersed in an unprecedented change in its defense policy, has shown interest in the proposal. Indeed, during the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that he had begun talks with his French counterpart on the development of a European nuclear umbrella. However, this European dimension has been especially realized in the cooperation with the United Kingdom, which has an arsenal of 225 nuclear warheadsaccording to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

In any case, French nuclear doctrine makes it clear that the nuclear coverage offered to other European countries does not contemplate foreign participation. And the use of atomic weapons is a sovereign decision of France, and in fact, the only one who can “press the nuclear button” is the President of the Republic.

In this context, and considering that the far-right National Rally party (RN, for its acronym in French) could reach the presidential palace in the 2027 elections (according to the latest polls), Macron seeks to implement measures that are not easily reversible due to the formation of Marine Le Pen, very critical of NATO and opposed to ‘giving up’ French nuclear weapons in any way.