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“To be free, one must be feared. To be feared, one must be powerful,” French President Emmanuel Macron said during a landmark speech this week on nuclear deterrence.
France is one of only two nuclear powers in Europe and, unlike the U.K., operates a nuclear weapons system entirely independent of the U.S.
As the U.S. and Israel continued to strike Iran, and European leaders appeared divided and sidelined as they scrambled to react, Macron delivered a speech on Monday that was “the most significant update to French nuclear deterrence policy in 30 years,” Bruno Tertrais, deputy director of the Foundation for Strategic Research, said in a thread on X.
Speaking from a naval base in Brittany in front of a submarine, “Le Témérair,” Macron’s 45-minute speech laid out what he called a new “forward deterrence” doctrine for France.
