Let’sshare nuclear arms, says Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron has raised the stakes in his push for Europe to become an independent military power with a proposal to extend the French nuclear umbrella to the continent.

The opposition to the left and right of the centrist president voiced outrage at his strongest offer to consider putting France’s nuclear arsenal, consisting of some 300 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles, at the service of its European neighbours.

Macron’s offer reflected his conversion over the past two years from an advocate of dialogue with Moscow over Ukraine to one of the West’s most ardent voices warning of an existential threat to Europe from Russia.

A “credible European defence” should go beyond the protection already offered by the US-led Nato alliance, Macron said. “French doctrine is that we can use [nuclear arms] when our vital interests are at stake ... There is a European dimension in these vital interests,” he told media.

“I am in favour of opening this debate, which must therefore include missile defence, long-range weapons and nuclear weapons for those who have them or who have American nuclear weapons on their soil.”

His allusion to countries with nuclear weapons on their soil was aimed at Germany, where US warheads are based. Germany has rejected suggestions made by Macron since 2020 that it should join a “strategic dialogue” on the role of the French deterrent in the continent’s collective security.

Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People’s Party in the European parliament, said in January that Europe should take up Macron’s offer.

Since Brexit, France has been the EU’s only nuclear power. Its force is deemed part of Nato’s overall deterrence.

Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general, has warned that calls for Europe to develop a nuclear umbrella could divide the continent from North America.

The radical left France Unbowed party said Macron was playing with fire. – The Times