French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would cut France's nuclear arsenal to fewer than 300 warheads, seeking to balance defense of the nation -- he mentioned the threat from Iran -- against budgetary and changed strategic considerations.
In his first major speech as president on the French deterrent, Sarkozy also urged the US and China to fully commit to a treaty banning tests of nuclear weapons.
In addition, Sarkozy shifted somewhat from the nuclear doctrine of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, by being slightly more ambiguous about the circumstances that might lead France to employ its nuclear weapons.
Sarkozy's decision to reveal the rough size of France's arsenal -- the Defense Ministry said the exact number of warheads is still secret -- appeared aimed at prodding other nuclear powers to be equally transparent.
AIRBORNE
Many of France's nuclear weapons are carried aboard submarines, with the rest on warplanes. Sarkozy said the airborne component would be cut by one-third, specifying that that included nuclear weapons, missiles and planes.
"After this reduction, our arsenal will include less than 300 nuclear warheads," he said on Friday. "That is half the maximum number of warheads that we had during the Cold War."
He also said that none of France's weapons is targeted at any nation.
SQUADRONS
France's airborne nukes are carried by three Air Force squadrons of Mirage 2000N and another Navy flotilla of upgraded Super Etendard jets.
They are all to be replaced by high-tech Rafale jets, in Air Force and Navy versions.
French defense expert Francois Heisbourg said the air fleet modernization allowed the size of the nuclear arsenal to be trimmed.
"When you have better planes taking over for older planes, you can afford to reduce the numbers," said Heisbourg, special adviser to the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think-tank.
"That doesn't make us virtuous guys in itself, although of course it's nicer to say the numbers are going down than the numbers are going up. What does make us more virtuous than we were before is by saying `By the way, that means we're going to have 300.' And that meaning is, `Oh by the way, dear Chinese friends, you better tell us how many you've got.'"
The Federation of American Scientists, which tracks nuclear arsenals around the globe, said in a status report for this year that France had 348 strategic nuclear weapons. It lists 193 for sites and for negotiations on treaties to ban short and intermediate-range ground-to-ground missiles and to ban the manufacturing of fissile material for nuclear weapons. He also pressured to China and the US to ratify a nuclear test ban treaty they signed in 1996. France ratified it a decade ago.
RATIFICATION
Heisbourg said ratification by China and the US would "put pressure on countries that have been building things that look like test sites, like the North Koreans or, indeed, the Iranians."
He also said a global treaty banning intermediate-range missiles could put severe pressure on India, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea.
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