By Aysenur Merdan – Senior Researcher, Mondo Internazionale G.E.O., Defence & Security Area
Introduction
On 2 March 2026, in a speech delivered at the Île Longue operational base, Emmanuel Macron redefined Paris’s strategic posture by announcing an increase in the number of nuclear warheads in the French arsenal and a strengthening of French deterrence within the broader framework of European security, while remaining consistent with the principle of national sovereignty.
This decision must be understood against the backdrop of an international context marked by growing instability, the return of high-intensity warfare to Europe, the modernization of nuclear arsenals and the weakening of the main arms control regimes. In particular, during the speech, he referred to the Russian threat and China’s nuclear build-up, once again stressing the need for Europe to assume greater responsibility for its own defence (Macron, 2026).
It is therefore important to note that the expansion of the French arsenal does not merely represent a military decision, but forms part of a broader political strategy. Paris aims to preserve the credibility of its deterrent while simultaneously giving it an increasingly explicit European dimension through what Macron described as forward deterrence.
However, this strategy is not free from ambiguity. On the one hand, the strengthening of deterrence may be interpreted as necessary in a highly competitive and unstable strategic environment, while on the other hand, the increase in warheads and the reduced transparency surrounding the arsenal risk becoming part of a broader dynamic of global nuclear rearmament.
This analysis seeks to examine this crucial dilemma: whether the French decision genuinely constitutes a step towards greater European strategic autonomy, or whether it contributes to the normalization of a new arms race.
The Historical Foundations of French Nuclear Deterrence
To fully understand Emmanuel Macron’s announcement, it is first necessary to place it within the broader history of French nuclear deterrence.
The force de frappe, France’s national nuclear deterrent, took shape during the Cold War and was consolidated under the presidency of Charles de Gaulle in order to guarantee Paris’s strategic autonomy. Deterrence thus became one of the pillars of national defence policy, as well as an expression of France’s freedom of action and its determination to reaffirm its role in the international system.
This connection between nuclear deterrence, strategic autonomy and international status was central to de Gaulle’s political vision. Indeed, he was a firm supporter of the idea of national grandeur and believed that being a great power did not simply mean possessing nuclear weapons but also being able to decide autonomously on their possible use. It was from this principle that one of the defining features of French nuclear doctrine emerged: nuclear deterrence had to remain under exclusive national control, separate from NATO’s integrated nuclear planning and free from any form of external decision-making automatism.
At the same time, however, de Gaulle believed that the development of an independent French nuclear capability could also contribute to the principles of collective defence in Western Europe. At a press conference on 15 May 1962 , he stated that the development of French deterrence would not only transform the conditions of France’s defence and external military operations but also shape the forms of assistance that Paris could provide to its allies (de Gaulle, 1962; Młynarski, 2024).
This logic shaped French nuclear policy under subsequent presidents. Indeed, the core principles of Gaullism remained central to France’ s strategic culture, particularly through the refusal to participate in integrated nuclear planning, the preservation of an independent nuclear force and the rejection of any automatic commitment of French forces.
Later, under the presidency of François Mitterrand, it reached a more mature formulation, based on the following three principles (Młynarski, 2024):
- the defence of vital national interests, whose definition remained deliberately vague and fully entrusted to the discretion of the President of the Republic.
- the possibility of a single nuclear warning, aimed at restoring deterrence before any larger scale retaliation.
- the ability to inflict unacceptable damage on an adversary, even after a possible first strike against French territory.
The above-mentioned principles still continue to characterise French nuclear policy today, which is based on the principle of sufficiency, namely the maintenance of a limited yet credible arsenal capable of deterring any actor from threatening French territory, population or sovereignty (Młynarski, 2024).
Macron’s European Turn in French Nuclear Deterrence
Under Emmanuel Macron, French nuclear deterrence acquired an increasingly pronounced European dimension.
In an interview with The Economist on 7 November 2019, the President argued that Europe could no longer remain merely an economic space protected by others but had to conceive of itself as a strategic power. This reflection was shaped by the Trump administration’s growing disengagement from Europe, the return of isolationist tendencies, the rise of China and the internal weakening of the European Union after Brexit (The Economist, 2019).
Afterwards, Macron developed this political diagnosis more explicitly in a speech delivered at the École de Guerre on 7 February 2020. On that occasion, he reaffirmed that, in order not to disappear geopolitically, Europe had to assume greater responsibility for defining its own security interests and for developing an autonomous capacity for action.
It was within this framework that Macron proposed opening a strategic dialogue with interested European partners on the role of French nuclear forces and invited them to take part in French deterrence exercises. The aim was to familiarise European allies with French nuclear doctrine and to strengthen the perception that France’s nuclear capabilities could have political significance for the security of the continent (Macron, 2020).
This initial attempt to Europeanise the political meaning of French deterrence gained renewed importance after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s repeated nuclear threats. Indeed, what had previously appeared as a long-term effort to build a common strategic culture increasingly came to be seen as a more immediate question of European security (Fayet, Futter and Kühn, 2024). French nuclear deterrence thus became part of a broader vision of European autonomy, understood as a project aimed at restoring Europe’s decision-making capacity, political weight and responsibility in defining its own strategic future (Fayet, Futter and Kühn, 2024; Wintour, 2024).
However, it was not without difficulties. First of all, France never formalised a genuine model of extended deterrence comparable to that of the United States. The doctrine of the Élysée has continued to rest on the principle of strict sufficiency, namely the maintenance of a limited but credible arsenal designed to protect France’s vital interests (Fayet, Futter and Kühn, 2024).
Moreover, the exclusive prerogative of the President of the Republic over any possible use of nuclear weapons made inevitable the tension between the desire to make French deterrence more relevant at the European level and the preservation of full political and operational control over the arsenal (Młynarski, 2024).
It is along this line of continuity that the speech of 2 March 2026 should be understood as an acceleration of a trajectory already under way, in which Macron took a further step by proposing a more advanced and more visible deterrent, increasingly projected into Europe’s strategic depth.
Forward Deterrence in 2026
The speech delivered at the Île Longue marked one of the most significant innovations in French nuclear policy in recent years due to four main developments. First, Macron announced an increase in the number of French nuclear warheads for the first time since 1992. According to SIPRI estimates, at the start of 2026 France possessed approximately 370 nuclear warheads, making it the fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world after Russia, the United States and China. This increase was interpreted by Rosenstein and Cheesman as a clear indication that Paris considers its current arsenal insufficient to project credible deterrence beyond its national borders (SIPRI, 2026). This was accompanied by the decision to end public communication on the size of the French nuclear arsenal to reinforce strategic ambiguity and make it more difficult for potential adversaries to assess French nuclear capabilities and plan possible attacks.
A further and particularly relevant dimension of forward deterrence concerns the possible temporary deployment of French nuclear capable aircraft in allied European countries. Such deployments, indeed, would allow Paris to extend the strategic depth of its deterrent and demonstrate more visibly its commitment to collective security.
At the same time, this operational dimension is reinforced by the strengthening of bilateral cooperation with selected European partners, designed to improve coordination, crisis signalling and escalation management in the context of a conventional conflict. In the first phase, the countries involved were Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Denmark and Sweden (Rosenstein and Cheesman, 2026).
Therefore, through forward deterrence, Macron no longer limits himself to reaffirming that French vital interests have a European dimension. Rather, he seeks to institutionalise enhanced cooperation with European allies through structured bilateral dialogues, common threat assessments, escalation-management mechanisms and visits to nuclear sites. In this sense, the novelty of the 2026 speech lies not only in the expansion of French nuclear capabilities, but also in the attempt to make the European dimension of French deterrence more concrete and operational.
Moreover, Macron places particular emphasis on cooperation through key conventional capabilities, such as early-warning systems, anti-drone and missile-defence capabilities and deep precision-strike capabilities. These instruments are intended to make the logic of forward deterrence more operational by positioning conventional capabilities as intermediate tools for managing escalation before the possible crossing of the nuclear threshold.
The strategic evolution compared with 2020 is therefore evident. Whereas Macron had previously proposed only a strategic dialogue with interested European countries, in 2026 he attempted to build a more stable and clearly defined framework for cooperation. The fact that, by June of the same year, several European allies had already expressed support for the launch of structured bilateral discussions suggests that the new strategy is not confined to the rhetorical level but is beginning to produce concrete forms of involvement (Macron and Merz, 2026; Élysée, 2026; Schepers, 2026).
However, forward deterrence also presents clear limitations. First, in line with the traditional French approach, there is no concession regarding the possible sharing of nuclear planning or of the conditions under which nuclear weapons might be used. Paris alone retains the authority to determine which threats could justify a nuclear response. This means that, despite the greater involvement of European allies, the ultimate decision-making power remains entirely national.
In addition, the French arsenal continues to serve an exclusively strategic function. It is not designed for scenarios involving tactical nuclear use or flexible response on the battlefield. For this reason, forward deterrence cannot, by itself, represent a fully credible alternative in the event of a serious weakening of the United States nuclear umbrella. This limitation is also reflected in the absence of some countries particularly exposed to the Russian threat, such as the Baltic states (Schepers, 2026). At the same time, however, the debate remains fluid since some countries on NATO’s northern and eastern flank have begun to reassess the legal and political restrictions surrounding the possible presence or transit of nuclear weapons on their territory. For example, Finland has moved to amend its Nuclear Energy Act and Criminal Code in order to remove legal barriers to the import, transport, supply or possession of nuclear devices in the context of national defence, NATO collective defence or defence cooperation (Finnish Government, 2026).
Finally, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the long-term continuity of the new French posture. With the 2027 presidential election approaching, there are concerns that Macron’s decisions could be scaled back or even reversed by a future nationalist successor. As a result, the French nuclear guarantee cannot be regarded as firmly institutionalised as the United States guarantee within NATO (Rosenstein and Cheesman, 2026).
Strategic Adaptation or a New Arms Race?
The new French nuclear strategy must be situated within an international context marked by a renewed reassessment of the role of nuclear weapons. Indeed, according to the data provided by the SIPRI Yearbook 2026, all nine nuclear-armed states strengthened their arsenals in 2025, with some of them deploying new nuclear or nuclear-capable systems (SIPRI, 2026).
From this perspective, France’s decision to increase the number of its warheads while simultaneously reducing transparency regarding the size of its arsenal does not constitute an isolated development. Rather, it forms part of a broader trend of modernisation and greater secrecy, aimed at increasing uncertainty in the calculations of potential adversaries.
However, the weakening or collapse of arms control agreements also reduces predictability among nuclear powers. Without shared limits, verification mechanisms and transparency instruments, it becomes more difficult to assess the size, structure and intentions associated with other states’ nuclear arsenals. As a result, the likelihood of miscalculation and inadvertent escalation during a crisis increases ((Messmer, 2026).
In particular, France’s position on this issue is particularly ambivalent. At the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot reaffirmed the centrality of the NPT as a cornerstone of the international security architecture and recalled France’s record on disarmament (Barrot, 2026), such as the reduction of its nuclear forces and the end of nuclear testing, in order to present it as a responsible nuclear weapon state, committed to the preservation of the non-proliferation regime.
At the same time, however, Barrot defended the strengthening of the French arsenal and the implementation of forwards deterrence as necessary responses to the deterioration of the strategic environment. This reveals the central tension in the French position: Paris continues to frame its nuclear policy through the language of responsibility, restraint and compliance with the NPT, while also justifying a more robust and less transparent deterrent posture (Barrot, 2026).
This ambiguity is not limited to France’s relationship with global non-proliferation regime; it is also reflected in the European architecture of deterrence. By relying primarily on a network of bilateral dialogues between Paris and individual European partners, forward deterrence allows France to preserve full political control over its deterrent while adapting cooperation to specific national needs. At the same time, however, this approach risks producing differentiated levels of involvement among allies, thereby generating a variable geometry of European nuclear security.
It becomes even a more delicate issue in relation to NATO, since Non-nuclear allies may find themselves supporting two deterrence paradigms that do not fully overlap: on the one hand, NATO nuclear sharing, based on the United States’ presence in Europe and on a logic of flexible response; on the other, French deterrence, which remains strictly national in character and rejects the idea of tactical nuclear use. In this context, while greater integration between conventional capabilities and nuclear deterrence may strengthen the credibility of Europe’s overall posture, it may also generate problems of coordination, duplication and strategic coherence.
Therefore, the new French posture does not amount to an arms race in the classical sense, as France does not seek to compete numerically with Russia or the United States. Nevertheless, it contributes to a deeper transformation of European security, in which nuclear weapons return not only as instruments of last resort, but also as increasingly visible tools of allied reassurance, political signalling and escalation management (Meier, 2026).
In this respect, the main risk is the gradual normalisation of nuclear deterrence as an ordinary response to instability on the European continent.
Conclusion
Macron’s forward deterrence represents neither a complete rupture with French nuclear tradition nor the creation of a genuine European nuclear umbrella. Rather, it should be understood as an attempt to adapt France’s long-standing doctrine of sovereign deterrence to a more unstable European security environment. Indeed, by making the European dimension of French vital interests more concrete, Paris offers its allies new forms of consultation, reassurance and operational involvement.
At the same time, however, the limits of this strategy remain clear. France continues to preserve full national control over its arsenal, while NATO and the United States remain central to European nuclear security.
Source Classification
Information Content | ||
1 | Confirmed | Confirmed by other independent sources; logical in itself; coherent with other information on the topic |
2 | Presumably true | Not confirmed; logical in itself; coherent with other information on the topic |
3 | Maybe true | Not confirmed; reasonably logical in itself; coherent with some other information on the topic |
4 | Uncertain | Not confirmed; possible but not logical in itself; no other information on the topic |
5 | Improbable | Not confirmed; not logical in itself; contradicts with other information on the topic |
6 | Not able to be evaluated | No basis to evaluate the validity of the information |
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