“To arms, citizens,” sang Emmanuel Macron as he led the acapella rendition of La Marseillaise before France’s dry-docked latest nuclear submarine.
Vladimir Putin is threatening European capitals with his doomsday weapons and stationed tactical nukes in the European enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus.
Mr Macon had just torn up 65 years of doctrine to offer French nukes to protect Europe from Russia; if necessary without the United States.
“To be free, we must be feared, and to be feared, we must be powerful,” Mr Macron declared in the cavernous chamber of the Ile Longue base, which he said was the “cathedral” of French sovereignty.
France would strengthen and modernise its deterrent, he said.
It would increase its arsenal but no longer reveal how many warheads it had.
That is just a small part of Mr Macron’s vision of “forward deterrence” to create a European-controlled line of nuclear deterrence behind the US shield.
London and Paris, Europe’s two nuclear powers and Nato allies, will work in close coordination.
Britain’s four Trident submarines and France’s four ballistic missile armed subs will maintain a continuous at sea deterrent, as French jets carrying tactical nuclear weapons rotate in secret around bases in allied territory, undertaking joint exercises in a show of strength.
Strategic ambiguity will compensate for the far-outgunned Europeans and buy time for its countries to rearm with conventional weapons to complement the nuclear threat.
“We must conceive our deterrence strategy within the depth of the European continent,” Mr Macron said as he sketched out his vision of an "archipelago of forces”.
“I want the Europeans to reclaim control of their own destiny”
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