The nuclear armament situation in France as seen by

15th International “Castiglioncello” Conference
Critical Issues in the Pathway to Nuclear Disarmament
Pugwash-USPID Joint meeting
September 27-29, 1913 – Castello Pasquini – Castiglioncello (Livorno)
The nuclear armament situation in France
as seen by « Armes Nucléaires STOP »
Luigi MOSCA
1 First a short reminder :
- France signed the “Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT)” in 1992,
the Treaty stopping the production of fissile materials in 1996,
and the Treaty stopping the Nuclear weapons tests of any type
in 1998.
- France in addition decreased the number of its weapons from
600 to about 300 units and dismantled the Plateau d’Albion
terrestrial launching base in 1996.
- France present armament consist of :
3 submarines x 16 missiles x 6 weapons ≈ 300 weapons
with at least 1 submarine permanently in state of alert
2 The French doctrine about Nuclear deterrence is essentially invariant
under right or left governments and is based on the need of defending the
“vital interests” of the French Nation, so that Nuclear deterrence is considered
a kind of “life insurance” of the Nation. The former President, Nicolas
Sarkozy, considered also the possibility of a “first nuclear strike” in case
these “vital interests” would be threatened by an “enemy”.
But an increasing number of opponents is raising up :
not only NGO’s, but also politicians and military officers,
such as Michel Rocard (former Prime minister), General Norlain,
Paul Quilès (former Defence minister !), …
….. and this “new” situation is now admitted even by the
French President, François Hollande.
3 Here are some examples of this “voice of the opponents” :
“Pour un désarmement nucléaire mondial, seule reponse à la prolifération
anarchique” by Alain Juppé, Bernard Norlain, Alain Richard et Michel Rocard “Le Monde” du 14 Octobre 2009
“EXIGEZ ! Un désarmement nucléaire total” by Stéphane Hessel and Albert
Jacquard (with L. Mosca and D. Lalanne as co-authors) - Observatoire des
armements - April 2012
“Nucléaire, un mensonge français” (Réflexions sur le désarmement nucléaire) by
Paul Quilès - April 2012
“Arrêtez la bombe” by Paul Quilès, with Bernard Norlain and Jean-Marie Collin February 2013
4 On the other hand, the Senate, after having recommended to
maintain the “deterrence force” at least until 2070, pursues
with the following incroyable statement :
• « S’il nous fallait dessiner aujourd’hui un format d’armées partant de zéro, il est fort probable que la nécessité d’acquérir une force de frappe nucléaire, avec de surcroît deux composantes, ne ferait pas par3e de nos ambi3ons de défense. • Nous concentrerions vraisemblablement nos efforts pour contrer des cyber-­‐aCaques, la grande criminalité ou les groupes terroristes agissant sur notre territoire. » (« Senate Information Report Nb. 668, 12 July 2012, page 37)
5 Several associations are very active in order to reach an awareness
of the public opinion to produce a pressure at the political level :
- - - - - - - - - - - “Le mouvement de la Paix”
“Armes Nucléaires STOP” (network of 20 associations)
Observatoire des armements
Maison de vigilance
IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War)
MAN (Mouvement pour une Alternative Non-violente)
Sortir du Nucléaire
Pugwash
Global Zero
The ICAN-France Campaign
…..
6 Here are some examples of their initiatives :
- Colloque : “Dissuasion nucléaire : ouvrons le débat” - 25 Janvier 2013 à l’Assemblée Nationale
(EELesVerts, Observatoire des armements, PNND France)
- Participation au “Forum Social Mondial” à Tunis - Mars 2013 (Mouvement de la Paix, ICAN-France,
Armes Nucléaires STOP, IPPNW)
- Participation to the PrepCom NPT, Geneva, April 2013 (Armes Nucléaires STOP, IPPNW,
ICAN-France, Mouvement de la Paix
- Conference : “Science, technologie et culture de la paix” Université d’Evry 22-23 May 2013 (link :
http://www.culturedelapaix.univ-evry.fr/?page_id=266)
(Armes Nucléaires Stop -IPPNW, etc.)
- Fast for Hiroshima and Nagasaki memory and for disarmament : from 6 to 9 August 2013 in
Paris, Burghfield (UK) and Büchel NATO base (Germany)
(Armes Nucléaires STOP, Sortir du Nucléaire, ICAN, Action AWE, JETZT)
- « Croisière de la Paix » à Paris, sur la Seine - 22 Septembre 2013 (Mouvement de la Paix, ICANFrance, Armes Nucléaires STOP, IPPNW)
7 Moreover, at “Armes Nucléaires STOP”, we are at the origin of the little book
for a large audience:
“EXIGEZ ! Un désarmement nucléaire total”,
then finalized with Albert Jacquard and Stéphane Hessel
(15 000 copies sold in 2012 // an Italian updated version should hopefully be
published in December, this year)
On the other hand we obtained from François Hollande to be received at the
Élysée by his Defence adviser, Christian Lechervy, in order to discuss
about “our divergences”.
This quite informal meeting (of ≈ 1.5 hours) has been interesting especially
because Mr Lechervy openly mentioned the difficulties they meet in
maintaining their strategy for the nuclear deterrence (la “force de
dissuasion”).
A first urgent problem is to find “something” to be done which can
demonstrate that France is contributing to a nuclear disarmament in the
world : this in view of the NPT revision in 2015. (They are “thinking
about”…)
8 Our analysis is that Nuclear Deterrence is a suicidal illusion, and also a
driving force of proliferation, while the French Government consider that
its first priority is to stop the proliferation process BEFORE stopping the
modernisation of its nuclear armament and perform a real disarmament :
a really “bootstrap” and so “impasse” situation !
A second problem is the “risk” that UK decide not to renew its nuclear
armament (Trident …) : this is the reason of the French-UK cooperation
Teutatès (Valduc - Aldermaston) started by the former French President,
Nicolas Sarkozy, and now continued with François Hollande.
A similar attitude of France concerns a possible elimination of the
NATO weapons based in Europe …
The essential motivation of these attitudes of the French government is to
avoid the “risk” that France could stay alone as nuclear military State in Europe
and so support alone the responsibility of the Russian maintain of their tactical
weapons !
9 Recently two events open a “window of hope” towards a nuclear
disarmament :
1) the Oslo Conference on the humanitarian consequences of a
nuclear war, organized last March (2013) by Norway with
several NGO’s and the participation of about 130 countries,
Conference which will be followed by a second session in
Mexico next year (February 2014)
2) the creation by the ONU General Assembly of an « OpenEnded-Working-Group » (OEWG), with the scope of
formulating new proposals for the disarmament, approved by
the majority of countries. The unanimity not being required,
there will be no possibility of vetoes !
10 The “hope” is that these two initiatives could lead to the
possibility of obtaining a Treaty forbidding the production,
the maintenance, the modernisation, the threat and “a
fortiori” the use of nuclear armaments.
The interesting point is that such a Treaty (as in the case of the
antipersonnel mines) would apply also to the countries
which didn’t sign it !
Conclusion : let’s be optimistic …. also if, at least for
the moment, the French government is not favourable to this
approach …
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