“Emmanuel Macron was right to recall that agitating the nuclear threat erodes its deterrent effect”

Lthe English call it a « hiccup “, a “hiccup” or, figuratively, a “hiccup”. In a television interview granted on October 12, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron defined “very clearly” them “fundamental interests of the nation” covered by our nation’s nuclear deterrent.

He added immediately that“a ballistic or nuclear attack in Ukraine or in the region” would not fall under it. The hexagonal strategic community was moved by this, repeating in unison that the Head of State had recklessly departed from the official doctrine on two counts: the fundamental interests are in fact said “vital” and undefined; European interests are deemed to participate in French nuclear deterrence.

These two variables had moreover been recalled by the same President Macron in a speech delivered at the School of War, in February 2020: “Let’s be clear, France’s vital interests now have a European dimension. »

The clarity of 2022 was obviously no longer that of 2020. Never mind, the president, taking advantage of a speech in Toulon on November 9, recalled the “vital interests”their “European dimension”and invited not to take everything at face value by dramatizing “a few words”hear: unhappy.

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In reality, the reading of this setback, whether it is a lapse, a deviation or an error, is valid if it makes it possible to discern the true strategic balance that our doctrine of deterrence is determined to achieve. In this case, the question that arises is that of the dynamic between historical centrality (the heart of the interests “vital”) and shared European interests (and which could come under, why not, our interests “fundamentals”). Yet it is indeed the meaning and scope of this balance that France’s European friends and partners, even more than its proven and potential adversaries, seek to decipher in the presidential speech. This is why the terms of October 12 made them perplexed, while the clarification of November 9 still keeps them in doubt. Why ?

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First, when the president affirms in Toulon that“Today more than yesterday, the vital interests of France have a European dimension. Our nuclear forces therefore contribute by their own existence to the security of France and Europe”, “the European dimension” is not defined, « l’Europe » is not defined, ” the contribution “ is not defined, and “own existence”precisely, seems to have more existential than operational meaning.

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