(April 1, 1994) On February 23, 1994 the long-awaited French government defence policy document (the so called White Paper) was submitted to parliament in Paris.
(409.4052) WISE Amsterdam - In this policy report for the period until the year 2010 it is stated: "For the first time in its history France knows no direct threat near to its borders". In the view of the French government this new political situation is not leading to a disarmament of French military forces. On the contrary - about 100 military and political experts who have worked on the White Paper, judged that particularly the lack of well-known risks makes the worldwide situation unsafe and dangerous.
Among other things they recommend that France should extend its conventional arsenal of weapons and keep its nuclear weapons. France can at most save money in the armament production, according to the White Paper. To do so experts recommend a strengthening in cooperation with foreign -especially German- military companies. According to the document, however the French military budget has to increase.
"We have to be on our guard", French Minister of Defense François Léotard said when he (together with Prime Minister Edouard Balladur) presented the 170 pages long White Paper. The document should be a guideline for future governments and make clear to the French population by. what kind of dangers they are threatened.
Six crisis scenarios - named S1 to S6-are described in detail in the White paper, all of them can make a French deployment necessary. Under the scenario S6, the White Paper mentions a nuclear threat against Western Europe which has (in the mind of the military) to be responded with nuclear weapons. The report assesses this threat as "very unlikely" but in the long run not at all impossible and a "deadly risk".
Twenty-two years after the last White Paper, this one is the French reaction to and vision on the world after the Cold War. In contrast to other western countries, France expresses no disarmament plans. Besides that the question about future nuclear tests in the Pacific is left out. Since two years France respects a moratorium ordered by socialist state president Francois Mitterrand and observed by all United Nations Security Council members except China.
Mitterrand can be held responsible for the fact that this "delicate topic" was avoided in the White Paper. But the conservative government has already announced several times its dissent. According to Minister for Defense François Leotard a resumption of nuclear tests is necessary for "the future" to gain the possibility to simulate the tests by computer. On March 3, 1994 the Minister announced in the financial committee of the National Assembly in Paris that corresponding credits should be doubled in the coming five years. By doubling the funding France could reach "in nine to ten years" the same simulation-capacity as the US. According to a parliamentary report 360 million Franc (about US$57 million) were reserved for this in 1994. Leotard thinks that the present French nuclear forces are not "threatened at all" by the moratorium. A total test ban will only be approved if France has the full capacity to simulate testing on computer.
The sensitive question about resumption of the nuclear tests (that were stopped by France in April 1992) is controversial in the non-socialist camp. At the beginning of March head of the neo-gaullist RPR - Jacques Chirac - had reproached the government that they agreed to an extension of the moratorium. He also accused Leotard of having not enough courage vis-á-vis state president Francois Mitterrand. Prime-minister Balladur was called a "coward" by his own political camp.
None of the bigger French political parties - from the extreme right-wing "Front National", through the center to the communists - questions the dog-ma of an independent "Force de Frappe" to maintain nuclear deterrence.
An opinion-poll on March 1 showed that three-quarter of the French population is against resumption of nuclear tests as long as the other nuclear powers follow the moratorium as well.
Sources;
- "die tageszeitung" (FRG), 25 Febr. & 5 March 1994
- Pacific News Bulletin, Febr 1994