“Open the debate” on a European defense which would include nuclear weapons. In an interview given to the Ebra group’s newspapers, Emmanuel Macron declared that France “is ready to contribute more to the defense of European soil”, in particular by opening the debate “which must therefore include anti-missile defense, weapons firing long-range, nuclear weapons for those who have them or who have American nuclear weapons on their soil, let’s put everything on the table and look at what really protects us in a credible way,” declared the head of the ‘State.
Guest of the Grand Rendez-vous d’Europe 1/ CNews/ The echoes, the head of the Les Républicaines list in the European elections François-Xavier Bellamy returned to this proposal, which he considers to be “exceptionally serious”. “We are touching the very nerve of French national sovereignty,” he criticizes. “Nuclear deterrence is of course based on the mastery of a technology which is very expensive for the French, which is a historic investment of our country and to dispossess the French of it is obviously a failure for the President of the Republic. ‘he had to go in that direction.’
Emmanuel Macron “does not defend the interests of France”
Since Brexit and the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union, France is the only one of its member states to have a nuclear deterrent. For the head of the LR list in the European elections, all the member states of the European Union “already benefit from the French nuclear deterrent. […] The big break is when Emmanuel Macron says that he wants to pool deterrence in his practice. What does tomorrow mean? Does that mean that we could propose to the state powers of other European countries to bring in French deterrence?” asks François-Xavier Bellamy. “When you are head of state, you must first learn to silence on what once again constitutes the heart of our security model”, protests the LR MEP.
According to him, the difficulty lies in the fact that “many in Europe would like to be able to control our nuclear deterrent […] But the big problem is not that, for example, the German chancellor wants to defend Germany’s interests by ensuring that France becomes a complementary element. The problem is not that Germany defends its interests. The problem is that the French head of state does not defend the interests of France,” he concluded at the Grand Rendez-vous microphone.