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French President Emmanuel Macron says ‘Europeans can’t remain spectators’ in nuclear arms race
- Macron urged the EU to push a global arms control agenda, saying Paris has cut the number of its warheads to under 300
- After Brexit, France is the only nuclear power within EU borders
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French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Friday that European nations “cannot remain spectators” in the face of a potential nuclear arms race and urged them to push an “international arms control agenda”.
“Europeans must realise collectively that in the absence of a legal framework, they could rapidly face a new race for conventional weapons, even nuclear weapons, on their own soil,” Macron said in a speech laying out France’s post-Brexit strategy for its nuclear arsenal.
He added that France had already reduced the number of its warheads to under 300, providing “the legitimacy to demand concrete moves from other nuclear powers toward global disarmament that is gradual, credible and can be verified”.
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After Brexit, France is the only nuclear power within EU borders, at a time when long-standing accords on limiting the growth of nuclear stockpiles appear increasingly at risk.
The United States has suggested it will not extend New START, an arms reduction treaty signed in 2010, and both Washington and Moscow have abandoned the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
Macron warned of “the possibility of a pure and unrestrained military and nuclear competition, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the end of the 1960s.”
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