PARIS:
Great Britain and France have taken a key stage to support the security of Europe by agreeing to strengthen nuclear cooperation, while the region is concerned about the American engagement towards its defense and its Russian ambitions.
By targeting a “restart” of defense links by emphasizing the joint development of missiles and nuclear cooperation, while strengthening support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, the two nuclear powers in Europe also hope to send a strong signal to Moscow.
From its creation, France’s nuclear deterrence was designed to be independent, its potential deployment subject to the evaluation by the French president of any threat perceived for the strategic interests of the Republic.
According to the Independent Institute of Stockholm Sipri on world security, France has 290 nuclear warheads, some transported on four submarines and some by burst fighter planes.
Great Britain has 225 nuclear warheads. For the moment, British nuclear deterrence is purely sea based, transported by four submarines armed with ballistic missiles.
However, the British government announced last month that it would add an airborne component to its operational system with the purchase of 12 American F-35 hunting planes.
Unlike France, British nuclear forces are entirely integrated under the aegis of NATO’s defense to cover the 32 member states of the Western military alliance.
Thursday during a visit by its president Emmanuel Macron in London, France accepted the principle of coordination with Great Britain despite nominal national independence.
Despite the independence dear to the French deterrence, Macron pointed out in 2020 that the vital interests of France have an “authentic European dimension”.
In a joint declaration from 1995, Paris and London recognized that “the vital interests of one (partner) could not be threatened without the vital interests of the other being also in danger”.
While this declaration was limited to the definition of “vital interests” of the two neighbors, the last cooperation agreement goes much further.
The 1995 Agreement “was a single Francoco-British statement at a very political level,” said Heloise Fayet, researcher on nuclear issues at the French Institute for International Relations.
In the last announcement, “the reference to nuclear weapons is much more visible and clear,” Fayet told AFP.
“There are two advances: at the operational level with this coordination of the two deterrents. And the second is obviously the expansion of the joint European dimension.”
