First, to faithful readers, please forgive my long silence on this site. I’ve been busy launching my Substack site devoted to broader questions of US and international politics. Please check it out. And frankly, French politics hasn’t offered much scope for comment in recent months, as the government frantically maneuvered to and fro to obtain a budget while every other politician in the country seemed to be preparing a run for the presidency.
But now Emmanuel Macron has launched a new initiative in the face of Europe’s increasing isolation and relegation as the world is divided into spheres of influence by the three major nuclear powers, the US, Russia, and China. To counter this, and in response to the Trump administration’s repeated signals that it may not be eager to rush to Europe’s defense under Article V of the NATO treaty in all circumstances, Macron has taken the bold step of proposing to “Europeanize” France’s force de frappe nuclear deterrent. Under the proposal, France would engage in joint exercises with other countries including Germany, Poland, and Denmark and potentially station nuclear-armed Rafale jets and cruise missiles outside the hexagon. Although the use of France’s nuclear weapons to defend Europe has always been implicit since the creation of the force de frappe, it was never previously formalized, and there has never been an offer to station French weapons outside its own territory. So this is a big deal.
Or is it? It is no surprise that Macron, the most European of French presidents, would be the first to make such a move. He has long been an advocate of an imprecisely defined “European sovereignty” to enhance Europe’s standing in the world, and the implicit promotion of “Europe” to the rank of a nuclear power would be an important step. Unlike the internationalization of debt, which Germany is more than reluctant to support, the need for a common defense backed by a credible nuclear deterrent is one that Germany is eager to get behind. But there are two flies in the ointment: the RN and the AfD. Macron is a lame duck in France, while in Germany Friedrich Merz’s government is faltering and under increasing pressure from a rising AfD.
The RN is seen as likely to win the next French presidential election, and a President Bardella is certainly not guaranteed to go along with Macron’s view of the need for “forward deployment” of French nuclear force. The AfD is even less likely to welcome Germany’s enlistment in Macron’s idea of European sovereignty. Macron’s remaining term of office is just slightly over a year, and his authority, already severely diminished, will further weaken as the campaign heats up and his irrelevance is subjected to even more glaring illumination. The European sovereignty concept, already fragile, could thus be nipped in the bud.
Meanwhile, the common Franco-German front on resistance to Russia’s assault on Ukraine may be tested by the new war on Iran. Merz, in Washington to meet Trump today, has signaled his support; Macron, once Europe’s Trump whisperer, has been cast out of that role. This is a story that will need to be followed closely in the months ahead.