PARIS — France’s defense minister said the country is sharing intelligence resources with Ukraine, after President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of expanding the French nuclear deterrent to protect European allies.
The moves here follow doubts about whether Europe can still count on the United States to help defend against Russian aggression.
The U.S. stopped sharing intel including satellite observations with Ukraine on Wednesday afternoon, which will have a major operational effect, Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu told France Inter radio on Thursday. Whether European intelligence can replace American intel “is an excellent question,” Lecornu said.
France’s intelligence assets are sovereign, “It has taken longer to build up our strength in recent years, but the advantage is that we have done so effectively with our own capabilities,” Lecornu said. “So yes, we have intelligence resources, we are letting the Ukrainians benefit from them.”
For the British, who are in a shared intelligence community with the U.S., “it’s more complicated,” the minister said.
France had 15 military satellites in space as of May 2023, compared with six for the United Kingdom and 246 for the U.S., according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. France is scheduled to launch the third of its CSO military observation satellites later today, with the first commercial flight of the Ariane 6 launcher from French Guiana.
Lecornu spoke after a televised speech by Macron on Wednesday night, in which the president said he had “decided to open the strategic debate” on protecting European allies through the country’s nuclear deterrent, in response to a call by the future German chancellor, an apparent reference to Friedrich Merz.
In any case, the nuclear deterrent would remain in French hands and would not be shared, Lecornu said. However, France’s vital interests are not necessarily limited to its borders, and there is a question of what the country can contribute to collective European security, according to the minister.
Lecornu said the French nuclear arsenal is sufficient, and France has been investing “a lot of resources” to ensure its deterrence remains credible, and is working on new warheads, missiles, aircraft and submarines for the next 10 to 20 years.
France has around 300 nuclear warheads, with a nuclear doctrine that doesn’t exclude first use, specifically mentioning the possibility of a nuclear warning shot. The country has two delivery vectors: Rafale jets that can carry nuclear-tipped missiles, and its four nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines.
Russia has become a threat to France and Europe “for years to come,” with plans to strengthen its armed forces with 300,000 additional soldiers, 3,000 tanks and 300 fighter jets, Macron said in his speech. “Who, in this context, can believe that today’s Russia will stop at Ukraine?”
Europe must continue to help Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion so the country can negotiate a “solid peace for themselves and for us,” and peace cannot be lead to Ukraine being abandoned or equate to a Russia-imposed capitulation, Macron said. He said solid guarantees for Ukraine might include the deployment of European forces, though not in a combat role.
The change in American behavior over the past 10 days has caused “astonishment,” according to Lecornu, with Europe facing the return of the Russian threat while no longer being able to count on American reassurance.
Lecornu said all shipments of U.S. military aid for Ukraine from Poland have been suspended, and he has been asked by Macron to speed up French aid packages to compensate.
Europe must be ready in case the U.S. is no longer at its side, Macron said. The president said budgetary choices and additional investment in defense have become “indispensable.”
The French armed forces could reach a “suitable point of fitness” depending on the various missions expected for around €90 billion ($97 billion) a year, according to Lecornu. That compares to France’s 2025 defense budget of €50.5 billion and a 2030 target of €68 billion.
The French Navy has 15 frigates and “clearly” needs at least three more, and should the U.S. disengage further, France would be forced to hold seas where currently the Americans ensure freedom of navigation, Lecornu said.
The minister said the Air Force needs around 20 more Rafale jets to carry out simultaneous or lengthy operational missions, while the land forces requires deep-strike capacity as frontlines grow increasingly long. France also needs more electronic-warfare capabilities, based on the example of the war in Ukraine, Lecornu said.
The one area where Europe needs to “wake up, and this is really urgent,” is space, which is becoming increasingly militarized, according to Lecornu.
Regarding contracts to buy U.S. military equipment, some European capitals may decide they can’t trust a system that is unpredictable, including on the use of weapons, according to Lecornu. He said that “the day the White House decides that American planes will no longer take off,” the Polish and German armed forces would be deprived of their fighter planes.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
