France and weapons of mass destruction
is one of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons. France is the only member of the European Union to possess nuclear weapons.
France was the fourth country to test a nuclear weapon, in 1960, and tested its first thermonuclear weapon in 1968. Charles de Gaulle was influential in the country's decision to develop both weapons and nuclear forces. France is also believed to have tested neutron bomb designs. The forces were developed in the late 1950s and 1960s to give France the ability to distance itself from NATO while still deterring the Soviet Union. France remains the only NATO member to not participate in its Nuclear Planning Group. France was the last of the five NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states to ratify the treaty, in August 1992. The French program's partnership with Israel's nuclear weapons program from 1949 to 1966 was influential to the success of each.
, the stockpile country's nuclear forces, the Force de dissuasion is estimated at 290 deployed nuclear warheads, making it the fourth-largest in the world numerically. Of these 290, approximately 240 are assigned to 48 MIRV-capable M51 submarine-launched ballistic missiles aboard its four Triomphant-class submarines. The remaining 50 are assigned to Dassault Rafale fighters armed with ASMP-A air-launched cruise missiles. Of these, 40 are assigned to land-based fighters, and 10 are in central storage for rapid deployment to the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. France plans to upgrade its nuclear forces with the ASN4G hypersonic air-launched cruise missile and SNLE 3G submarines. France possessed land-based intermediate-range ballistic missiles, the S2 and S3, between 1971 and 1996, in silos at the.
France carried out the Reggane and In Ekker series of nuclear tests in Algeria between 1960 and 1966. France did not sign the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and alongside China, continued conducting atmospheric nuclear tests. These occurred at Moruroa and Fangataufa atolls in French Polynesia, from 1966 to 1974, when they moved to underground testing. Its testing in both regions was controversial, with residents seeking compensation for fallout exposure. France conducted its last nuclear test in January 1996, and signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in September 1996, ratifying it in 1998.
France is not believed to possess biological or chemical weapons, becoming party to the Biological Weapons Convention in 1984, and the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1995. France, alongside other major participants, used chemical warfare in World War I. Beginning with a tear gas in 1914, and transitioning to phosgene. France ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1926. France possessed phosgene and mustard gas stockpiles during World War II but no chemical warfare took place on the Western Front. France may also have investigated potato beetle entomological warfare during the war. After the war, France captured tabun nerve agent from Nazi Germany, and tested it at a site in French Algeria. During the Cold War, France had a chemical weapons stockpile and infrastructure. During the Algerian War, France used incapacitating agents including adamsite in enclosed spaces, killing Algerians. It is believed to have destroyed its stockpile sometime before 1989.
History
France was one of the nuclear pioneers, going back to the work of Marie Skłodowska Curie and Henri Becquerel. French Professor Frédéric Joliot-Curie, High Commissioner for Atomic Energy from 1945 to 1950 and Curie's son in law, told the New York Herald Tribune that the 1945 Smyth Report wrongfully omitted the contributions of French scientists.After World War II France's former position of leadership suffered greatly because of the instability of the Fourth Republic, and the lack of finance available. During the Second World War Bertrand Goldschmidt invented the now-standard method for extracting plutonium while working as part of the British/Canadian team participating in the Manhattan Project. But after the Liberation in 1945, France had to start its own program almost from scratch. Nevertheless, the first French reactor went critical in 1948 and small amounts of plutonium were extracted in 1949. There was no formal commitment to a nuclear weapons program at that time, although plans were made to build reactors for the large scale production of plutonium. Francis Perrin, French High-Commissioner for Atomic Energy from 1951 to 1970, stated that from 1949 Israeli scientists were invited to the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre, this cooperation leading to a joint effort including sharing of knowledge between French and Israeli scientists especially those with knowledge from the Manhattan Project, the French believed that cooperation with Israel could give them access to international Jewish nuclear scientists. According to Lieutenant Colonel Warner D. Farr in a report to the USAF Counterproliferation Center, while France was previously a leader in nuclear research "Israel and France were at a similar level of expertise after the war, and Israeli scientists could make significant contributions to the French effort. Progress in nuclear science and technology in France and Israel remained closely linked throughout the early fifties. Farr reported that Israeli scientists probably helped construct the G-1 plutonium production reactor and UP-1 reprocessing plant at Marcoule."
However, in the 1950s a civilian nuclear research program was started, a byproduct of which would be plutonium. In December 1954, Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France met with his cabinet, authorizing the foundation of a program with the goal of developing French nuclear weapons. In 1956 a secret Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy was formed and a development program for delivery vehicles was started. The intervention of the United States in the Suez Crisis that year is credited with convincing France that it needed to accelerate its own nuclear weapons program to remain a global power. As part of their military alliance during the Suez Crisis in 1956 the French agreed to secretly build the Dimona nuclear reactor in Israel and soon after agreed to construct a reprocessing plant for the extraction of plutonium at the site. In 1957, soon after Suez and the resulting diplomatic tension with both the Soviet Union and the United States, French president René Coty decided on the creation of the C.S.E.M. in the then French Sahara, a new nuclear testing facility replacing the CIEES.
In 1957 Euratom was created, and under cover of the peaceful use of nuclear power the French signed deals with West Germany and Italy to work together on nuclear weapons development. The Chancellor of West Germany Konrad Adenauer told his cabinet that he "wanted to achieve, through EURATOM, as quickly as possible, the chance of producing our own nuclear weapons". The idea was short-lived. In 1958 de Gaulle became president and Germany and Italy were excluded.
With the return of Charles de Gaulle to the presidency of France in the midst of the May 1958 crisis, the final decisions to build an atomic bomb were taken, and a successful test took place in 1960 with Israeli scientists as observers at the tests and unlimited access to the scientific data. Following tests de Gaulle moved quickly to distance the French program from involvement with that of Israel. Since then France has developed and maintained its own nuclear deterrent, one intended to defend France even if the United States refused to risk its own cities by assisting Western Europe in a nuclear war.
De Gaulle also wanted to end French–Israeli nuclear cooperation and said that he would not supply Israel with uranium unless the plant was opened to international inspectors, declared peaceful, and no plutonium was reprocessed. Through an extended series of negotiations, Shimon Peres finally reached a compromise with Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville over two years later, in which French companies would be able to continue to fulfill their contract obligations and Israel would declare the project peaceful. Due to this, French assistance did not end until 1966. However, the supply of uranium fuel was stopped earlier, in 1963. Despite this, a French uranium company based in Gabon may have sold Israel uranium in 1965. The US government launched an investigation but was unable to determine if such a sale had taken place.
The United States began providing technical assistance to the French program in the early 1970s through the 1980s. The aid was secret, unlike the relationship with the British nuclear program. The Nixon administration, unlike previous presidencies, did not oppose its allies' possession of atomic weapons and believed that the Soviets would find having multiple nuclear-armed Western opponents more difficult. Because the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 prohibited sharing information on nuclear weapon design, a method known as "negative guidance" or "Twenty Questions" was used; French scientists described to their U.S. counterparts their research, and were told whether they were correct. Areas in which the French received help included MIRV, radiation hardening, missile design, intelligence on Soviet anti-missile defences, and advanced computer technology. Because the French program attracted "the best brains" of the nation, the U.S. benefited from French research as well. The relationship also improved the two countries' military ties; despite its departure from NATO's command structure in 1966, France developed two separate nuclear targeting plans, one "national" for the Force de Frappe's role as a solely French deterrent, and one coordinated with NATO.
France is understood to have tested neutron or enhanced radiation bombs in the past, apparently leading the field with an early test of the technology in 1967 and an "actual" neutron bomb in 1980.