L’ILE LONGUE, France — French President Emmanuel Macron announced Monday that France would for the first time allow the deployment of its nuclear-armed aircraft to allied countries in a new nuclear strategy aimed at strengthening Europe’s independence.
Macron also announced the first increase in his country’s nuclear arsenal in decades during a speech outlining the strategy at a military base at L’Ile Longue in northwestern France that hosts the country’s ballistic missile submarines.
“To be free, one needs to be feared,” Macron said.
Macron said the new posture could “provide for the temporary deployment of elements of our strategic air forces to allied countries,” but said there would be no sharing of decision-making with any other nation regarding the use of the nuclear weapons.
Talks about such arrangements have started with Britain, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, and Denmark, Macron said.
Macron’s long-planned speech, scheduled before the most recent outbreak of hostilities in Iran, was aimed at spelling out how French nuclear weapons fit into Europe’s security amid concerns raised on the continent by recurring tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
France also will allow partners to participate in deterrence exercises and allow allies’ non-nuclear forces to participate in France’s nuclear activities, said Macron, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces under the French constitution.
European partners welcomed the new strategy of France, which has been the only nuclear power in the European Union since Britain’s exit from the bloc in 2020.
In a joint statement, Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the two countries would deepen integration in deterrence starting this year, “including German conventional participation in French nuclear exercises and joint visits to strategic sites.”
In a letter to Dutch lawmakers, Defense Minister Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius and Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen said the Netherlands was in strategic talks with France on nuclear deterrence as “a supplement to, and not a replacement for, NATO’s collective defense and nuclear deterrence capabilities.”
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that “we are arming up together with our friends so that our enemies will never dare to attack us.”
Macron also announced that France will increase its number of nuclear warheads from the current level of below 300, but did not give a figure for the increase. It will be the first time France increases its nuclear arsenal since at least 1992.
“I have decided to increase the numbers of warheads of our arsenal,” Macron said. “My responsibility is to ensure that our deterrence maintains — and will maintain in the future — its assured destructive power.”
“If we had to use our arsenal, no state, however powerful, could shield itself from it, and no state, however vast, would recover from it,” Macron said.
European leaders have voiced growing doubts about U.S. commitments to help defend Europe under the so-called nuclear umbrella, a policy long intended to ensure that allies — particularly NATO members — would be protected by American nuclear forces in the event of a threat.
Macron said that recent changes in U.S. defense strategy amid the emergence of new threats have demonstrated a refocusing of American priorities and have encouraged Europe to take more direct responsibility for its own security. He said Europeans should take their destiny more firmly into their hands.
Some European nations have already taken up an offer Macron made last year to discuss France’s nuclear deterrence and even associate European partners in nuclear exercises.
Last month, Merz said he’d had “initial talks” with Macron on the issue and had publicly theorized about German Air Force planes possibly being used to carry French nuclear bombs. But Macron ruled out any such possibility in Monday’s speech.
France and Britain also adopted a joint declaration in July that allows both nations’ nuclear forces, while independent, to be “coordinated.” The U.K., no longer an EU member but a NATO ally, is the only other country in Western Europe with a nuclear deterrent.
Macron has consistently insisted any decision to use France’s nuclear weapons would remain only in the hands of the French president.
Macron added that the evolution of France competitors’ defenses, the emergence of regional powers, the possibility of coordination among adversaries, and the risks linked to proliferation led him to the conclusion that it was essential for France to enhance its nuclear arsenal.
