During the interview published in the Ebra group’s newspapers, President Macron said he was ready to open the debate on a European defense which would also include nuclear weapons. For him, this European debate should also incorporate anti-missile defense and long-range weapons fire, in the context of the war in Ukraine.
The doctrine developed sixty years ago by General Pierre Gallois, father of deterrence, is intangible, however said Franck Alexandre : it does not provide room for an anti-missile shield. If vital interests are attacked, France’s response is nuclear fire. The credibility of deterrence rests on this postulate: an enemy who would like to attack us harshly must know that in return we promise him the apocalypse.
But can nuclear weapons be shared? By definition no, nuclear weapons are the ultimate tool of sovereignty, the head of state is the only one who can use them. When Emmanuel Macron speaks of a European defense which would also include nuclear weapons, he reiterates his words of October 13, 2022: the vital interests of France, which is the only European country equipped with this weapon, extend to the Old Continent . It remains unclear what this means. For example, if Germany were attacked, the vital interest would be obvious, but what would it be for a small, more peripheral country. The doctrine does not say so.
So why this shift towards anti-missile defense? Firstly, long-range missiles are no longer the prerogative of the great powers, we see this in the Middle East where a certain number of terrorist groups now have them and responding to potential attacks with nuclear strikes is not necessarily relevant, a question of scale. Secondly, Germany aims to build an anti-missile shield for Europe on the model of the Israeli “iron dome”, but France, the leading missile manufacturer, is not associated with it, so there is an industrial aspect, Paris does not cannot stay away from such a structuring project.