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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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France has said it will increase its nuclear weapons arsenal as eight European members of NATO pledge to cooperate more closely with Paris on nuclear weapons, a major shift away from longstanding reliance on the U.S.' powerful nuclear arsenal.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris will no longer publicly declare how many nuclear warheads it has at its disposal as he announced the first increase to France's nuclear stockpile in decades.
Although France and the U.K. have their own, relatively small caches of nuclear weapons, European nations within NATO have long leaned on the U.S. to provide the main nuclear deterrent for the alliance with its far larger stockpile.
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But sharp White House criticism of America's European allies and Canada has forced the rest of NATO to re-evaluate how much trust it can place in the U.S. and its so-called nuclear umbrella to defend their interests.
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France said the U.K., Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark had agreed to be part of a new continental nuclear strategy, which would include French nuclear-capable fighter jets temporarily deployed outside French soil.
The idea of a European nuclear deterrent had been gathering pace for weeks, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz saying last month that Berlin had discussed options with Macron. An Élysée statement on Monday said Germany would take part in French nuclear exercises from later this year and a "high-ranking nuclear steering group" had been set up.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk appeared to reference this new agreement on Monday, saying Warsaw was in talks with France and other European countries about nuclear weapons.
"We are arming up together with our friends so that our enemies will never dare to attack us," Tusk said.
"To be free, one needs to be feared," Macron said during a visit to a military base in western France on Monday that hosts the country's ballistic submarines. “An upgrade of our arsenal is essential."
France is the only nuclear power in the European Union and is thought to have just under 300 nuclear warheads. The U.K. has roughly 225 nuclear weapons, with a nuclear-armed submarine patrolling at all times. The British government pledged in 2021 to increase its nuclear stockpile by up to 40 percent to 260 warheads.
British and French officials met in December for the first meeting of the two countries' new Nuclear Steering Group, which was set up last July after London and Paris pledged closer nuclear cooperation. U.K. representatives observed French nuclear drills for the first time, both nations said.
Danish Minister of Defense Troels Lund Poulsen said the strikes being exchanged in the Middle East, the long-running war in Ukraine and the U.S.' "new paths in security" policy had forced Denmark to consider moving closer to France on nuclear deterrence.
"It completely changes the playing field," he said on Monday, while specifying that although nuclear weapons would not be deployed in Denmark for now, the door was open to this in the future.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever said Belgium welcomed Macron's initiative and would work with France to implement it.
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