France warns it could use nukes

From DefenseNews

Chirac Warns Would-be Attackers France Could Respond With Nukes

By PIERRE TRAN, PARIS

President Jacques Chirac extended France’s nuclear doctrine Jan. 19 with a warning that states considering using terrorist attacks or weapons of mass destruction run the risk of a nuclear retaliation.

“Leaders of states which might resort to terrorist methods against us, just as those envisaging to use, in one way or another, weapons of mass destruction, should understand they expose themselves to a firm and proportionate response on our part,” Chirac said in a keynote speech on a visit to Le Vigilent, the most modern of France’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

“This response could be conventional. It might be otherwise,” he told officers at a naval base near Brest in northern France.

France’s nuclear armory is being modernized and reduced to give it the capability to strike power centers rather than threaten whole populations. This means that against a regional power, France is not powerless in the face of threats, Chirac said in his first speech on deterrent doctrine in five years.

As head of state and chief of the armed forces, the president is constitutionally charged with defining France’s vital interests, but what those interests are have changed with time, Chirac said. Those interests could include strategic supplies and defense of allied nations, he said.

The nuclear arsenal, composed of four ocean-going submarines and an air wing, costs some 3 billion euros ($3.6 billion) a year to maintain. That is 20 percent of the equipment budget, or 10 percent of the total defense budget.

Critics say the nuclear element takes too much of the defense budget, and scrapping the deterrent force would release funds for other capabilities — notably, network-enabled systems for a light, agile military.

With the 2007 election year looming, some analysts wonder whether a new president would retain the nuclear force, developed by President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s as the ultimate expression of France’s autonomy and sovereignty.