Macron plans to deploy nuclear weapons to Britain

 French nuclear-armed jets could be stationed in Britain and other allied European countries after Emmanuel Macron unveiled a dramatic expansion of France’s deterrence doctrine.

The French president also used the symbolic setting of Île Longue, the country’s Atlantic nuclear fortress in Brittany, to announce the first increase in its nuclear warhead stockpile since the 1990s.

The solemn speech came after the United States and Israel launched attacks against Iran, and as Russia’s war against Ukraine ground into a fifth year with Nato allies worrying about Washington’s wavering commitment to the alliance.

“We must strengthen our nuclear deterrent in the face of multiple threats, and we must consider our deterrence strategy deep within the European continent, with full respect for our sovereignty,” Mr Macron said.

Announcing “the gradual implementation of what I would call advanced deterrence”, Mr Macron said France would allow the temporary deployment of elements of its strategic air forces to participating European countries.

The move opens the door to nuclear-capable aircraft being stationed on allied soil – potentially including the UK – in an unprecedented step for Europe’s two nuclear powers. The British Government was contacted for a response.

The announcement builds directly on the July 2025 Northwood co-operation agreement between Paris and London, in which the two countries stated their nuclear forces were independent “but can be coordinated”.

In July, during his state visit to the UK, Mr Macron and Sir Keir Starmer pledged to work “more closely than ever before” on nuclear deterrence.

Senior British officials attended a French strategic air force exercise this winter for the first time, a symbolic and practical sign of deepening integration.

“Our strategic air forces will thus be able to spread out across the European continent,” Mr Macron said, describing a dispersion “like an archipelago of force” designed to “complicate our adversaries’ calculations” and provide new strategic depth.

Eight countries have agreed to participate in the scheme: Britain, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark.

Germany and Poland have asked for shelter under France’s nuclear umbrella and do not have their own deterrent, which makes it more likely that the jets would be posted there than in Britain.

In addition to its submarine-based nuclear weapons, the UK plans to buy 12 American-built F-35A fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons, a move that would restore a nuclear strike role for the RAF for the first time since the end of the Cold War.

At the same time, Mr Macron announced that France would increase the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal, currently estimated at just under 300. This would be the first increase since the early 1990s.

Standing before one of France’s four nuclear submarines, he said a single nuclear missile fired from the craft possessed more firepower than “all of the [conventional] bombs dropped in the Second World War”.

But he added: “An upgrade of our arsenal is essential. That’s why I have decided to increase the number of warheads.”

He said France would not disclose the scale of the expansion, but Mr Macron made it clear that he alone would keep control over the nuclear button.

“There will be no sharing of the ultimate decision, its planning, or its implementation,” he said. “Under our constitution, this decision rests solely with the president of the republic.”

There would be no shared definition of France’s “vital interests” and “no guarantee in the strict sense of the term”, since rigid guarantees would lower the nuclear threshold.

France would therefore “always act alone” in deliberately crossing that threshold, even while taking allies’ interests into account.

Alongside nuclear coordination, Mr Macron unveiled a significant conventional component.

“With regard to deep strike capabilities, Germany, the United Kingdom and France … will work together on very long-range missile projects,” he said.

The trilateral effort – under the European long-range strike approach (Elsa) initiative – aims to develop new long-range conventional strike systems as Russia expands its missile arsenal and arms-control agreements unravel.

An overhaul was essential given the collapse of global nuclear governance, he warned.

“The field of rules is a field of ruins,” he said, citing the demise of the intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty and the expiry of the new nuclear-arms reduction treaty between the US and Russia.

China’s rapid build-up and renewed proliferation risks, including over Iran and North Korea, added to what he called a period “fraught with risk”.

Although France’s advanced deterrence will remain separate from Nato’s nuclear mission – in which Paris does not participate – Mr Macron said the initiative had been developed “in full transparency with the United States” and in close coordination with Britain.

Britain’s Ministry of Defence was asked to comment.

Mr Macron said that recent changes in US defence strategy had demonstrated a refocusing of American priorities and encouraged Europe to take more direct responsibility for its own security. He said Europeans should take their destiny more firmly into their hands.

“To be free, one needs to be feared,” he said. “If we had to use our arsenal, no state, however powerful, could shield itself from it, and no state, however vast, would recover from it,” he added.

“The coming half-century will be an age of nuclear weapons,” Mr Macron concluded. “France will be strong with a modernised, powerful, sovereign nuclear arsenal – always sovereign – but rooted in European strategic solidarity.”

A government spokesman said: “We welcome the proposals set out by President Macron to co-operate more closely with allies on nuclear issues.”

They said concrete steps to strengthen nuclear co-operation were agreed with France in the Northwood Declaration and at 2025’s UK-France summit

“The UK and France are both resolved to deter threats against Europe and will not be intimidated by Russian nuclear rhetoric,” they added.

“The UK’s nuclear deterrent remains declared to the defence of Nato and our Nato allies. Our mutual collaboration with France strengthens our existing commitments to our allies in an uncertain and dangerous world.”