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Nuclear submarine “Emeraude”: France had already made clear offers in 1995

Photo: ABACAPRESS / IMAGO

We have been discussing our security with new vehemence in Europe and Germany for a few days because American presidential candidate Donald Trump has cast doubt on the US promise of protection for NATO partners. Suddenly people are thinking about the EU's own nuclear bombs or recalling offers of cooperation from French President Emmanuel Macron, as Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner did.

In fact, other Europeans should consider France's offer seriously and, above all, quickly. Because it's not new. Long before Macron, the French were ready to protect Europe with their “Force de Frappe”.

As early as 1995, our neighbor made clear offers for a European nuclear deterrent. To this day we have not responded.

At that time I was the disarmament policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. Against the backdrop of global criticism of French nuclear tests in the Pacific Mururoa Atoll, I had planned talks in Paris. But the French went further and invited me at short notice to visit their “nuclear triad” on site, i.e. their land, air and sea-based nuclear weapons.

In August 1995, the commander of the French submarine force gave me a tour of the submarine “L'Inflexible,” which was equipped with nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. They will soon leave the port and then go into hiding for three months, he explained. The commander determines the route independently; no one in the world knows it. In the event of a defense, any place on earth could be destroyed. This deters potential attackers.

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And then he asked: Why aren't there German marines on board? He would like to see a German-French, perhaps even a European, crew on his submarine under a common European nuclear doctrine.

While he showed me with great pride the kitchen where fresh croissants were baked every morning during the diving trip, I asked whether he thought the decision about the actual use of weapons should also be made in a European manner. He said no: the principles for an operation should be coordinated down to the last detail on a German-French, and later European, basis. However, the final decision to press the “red button” will not be handed over to France.

A little later we visited the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which was under construction. The commander said back then, almost 30 years ago, that he would like to one day see to it that it would ensure “our common security” in conjunction with a German sister ship, the Konrad Adenauer.

I heard similar thoughts and reflections in Istres, northwest of Marseille, where I visited the nuclear-equipped French Air Force, and on the Plateau d'Albion in the Vaucluse department, where the land-based nuclear missiles were stationed.

The Plateau d'Albion seemed like something out of a James Bond film: kilometers of underground shafts in a mountain and in the center of the facility a capsule in which two soldiers chained to the equipment do shift work on the "red button" for a few hours. A year later, President Jacques Chirac decided to abandon land-based nuclear defense.

It became clear here that financial considerations also play a role in the idea of ​​Europeanization, then as now: the maintenance and modernization of these arsenals cost billions of euros per year.

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In close coordination with the then CDU parliamentary group leader Wolfgang Schäuble and our foreign policy spokesman Karl Lamers, I then held talks with the security advisors of the President, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and members of the National Assembly. Finally, I was received by the then Chief of the General Staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, who impressed me most of all with his education, his experience and his clear strategic vision.

This message is everywhere: France is ready to first and seriously talk to Germany about the Europeanization of the “Force de Frappe”. It was said that President François Mitterand had already raised this possibility with Chancellor Helmut Kohl. But Germany has so far avoided it, probably also because people in Washington view such considerations with suspicion. But they want to conduct this dialogue with and not against the USA and NATO. It's about setting up a "second nuclear umbrella" (Lanxade) as reinsurance. The then President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Alain Juppé later publicly underlined the desire for dialogue on these issues.

And then? The French initiative at the time was noticed carefully, but soon fizzled out. It was only with the presidency of Donald Trump that Europeans slowly, far too slowly, began to become aware of their dangerous situation.

Chancellor Angela Merkel declared in Munich in May 2017: "The times when we could completely rely on others are somewhat over." Europeans must "really take their fate into our own hands." In February 2020, Emmanuel Macron offered a “dialogue” on nuclear deterrence.

But with Donald Trump's defeat against Joe Biden in the US presidential election in November 2020, offers, dangers and warnings were pushed aside. Only now are we becoming aware of the precarious situation in Europe.

Of course, we don't have to immediately lose our trust in the American protective umbrella for Europe because of some of Trump's statements. Defense Minister Boris Pistorius rightly points out that many people in the USA also know what they have in their transatlantic partners; that they know “what it means to cut or overstretch the transatlantic bonds.” Because this would also endanger the USA's own interests.

But why can't there be a second umbrella? There should – after thirty years – finally be a serious German and European strategic response to the French offer renewed by Macron.

The debate must not be slowed down again. It must be conducted carefully and with the close involvement of our allies in NATO. In a conversation with Chancellor Olaf Scholz a few days ago, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned of exactly this: to take the French signals for a Europeanization of nuclear deterrence "really seriously." He is right.