French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a pivotal address on March 5, 2025, outlining the challenges facing France and Europe amid shifting global dynamics. His speech emphasized the need for greater European autonomy in defence, the urgency of addressing Russian aggression, and the implications of reduced U.S. support for Ukraine.

Macron painted a stark picture of Russia's actions, describing its aggression as a direct threat to France and Europe. He noted that Russia has transformed the conflict in Ukraine into a global crisis by deploying North Korean troops and Iranian weaponry, interfering in elections in Romania and Moldova, and orchestrating cyberattacks on critical infrastructure like hospitals.

A significant part of Macron's address was his proposal to extend France’s nuclear deterrent to protect European allies. As the EU’s sole nuclear power, France could play a pivotal role in safeguarding the continent. Macron announced plans to initiate strategic discussions with European leaders regarding this proposal while reaffirming that decisions about nuclear deployment remain solely under presidential authority.

Macron stressed the need for immediate investments to strengthen France’s military forces and accelerate reindustrialization across all regions. He outlined plans to mobilize both public and private funding without increasing taxes, emphasizing the importance of reforms and strategic choices. At the European level, he called for massive joint financing to ensure robust collective defence.

Macron’s address served as a rallying cry for Europe to take control of its destiny amid mounting threats from Russia and uncertainties surrounding US support.

Unfortunately, the impact of Macron’s speech remains limited. Thanks to France’s unique posture, the country can count on a nuclear deterrent and may virtually provide for its own security without NATO. This put Paris in position of strength when bargaining with any other country on military affairs. This notwithstanding, like any other military in Europe, the French armed forces are undersized and not sufficiently prepared to have an impact in European (and global) affairs, and the credible nuclear umbrella is not sided by a proportional conventional deterrent for all those scenarios (the majority) well under the threshold of nuclear escalation.

The possibility to extend French nuclear deterrence to Europe would imply that the other European countries should trust Paris more than Washington when it comes to guaranteeing prompt French intervention in case of need. This is not happening, as most European leaders would prefer to find a conservative deal with the US rather than exploring other unexplored or previously unthinkable alternatives.

The hypothesis of the French nuclear deterrent protecting Europe is also limited by France’s current posture. France applies a principle of strict sufficiency to determine the level of its nuclear forces. It bases its credibility on the principle of sufficiency, also known as the principle of deterrence from the weak to the strong, according to which it is sufficient for nuclear capabilities to inflict damage on an aggressor equivalent to the damage it would have inflicted in order to cancel out the benefits of its attack. The French nuclear arsenal has therefore been kept at the lowest possible level, compatible with the previous strategic context. Today’s contest would require a more robust deterrent, and protecting Europe through this guiding principle would require doubling or triple the size of the French deterrent based on submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). The backbone of France’s nuclear arsenal lies in its fleet of 4 TRIOMPHANT-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), operated by the French Navy. These submarines carry approximately 80% of France’s 290 nuclear warheads and maintain a continuous at-sea deterrence posture, ensuring that at least one submarine is always on patrol. Complementing this capability is a squadron of RAFALE MF3 aircraft armed with ASMP-A cruise missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. The new French third-generation ballistic missile submarine (SNLE 3G) is scheduled to enter operational service in 2035, meaning that augmenting the French deterrent would require decades and it is not a plug-and-play option for the current crisis. Hence, while the French are the only Europeans who do not have to beg for US nuclear umbrella, the French capability of providing a credible and consistent nuclear umbrella is limited.

On one point President Macron is utterly right: behind the unpalatable tones of the current US administration, it is clear since President Obama’s “pivot to Asia”, in 2008/2009, that Washington desires to disengage from Europe to focus on strategic competition with China and other international issues deemed more relevant to US interest. Wars in Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 forced the US to spend political capital and military power on issued they would have preferred not to be dragged in. Conversely, in the last 15-20 years, European leaders (including France’s) have tried to maintain US presence as only option and focused mainly on internal agendas – pushed by increasingly demanding electorates. Worse still, reactions to the war in Ukraine were slowed down by the hope that the war could end up soon and that investments pledged to defence in the last 2 years could be reverted/cut. European leaders seem to have forgotten that war is an existential threat and defending nations is one of the main “raisons d’être” of a state, not an ancillary one.

To be realistic, 20 years of unpreparedness and dismantlement of defence capabilities cannot be reverted in just a couple of years. No matter how European leaders will respond, but European countries will now pay for the mistakes of the past, squeezed between Russian threat and US pressures and hawkish behaviours. The only hope is that lesson has been learned and – if Europe does not collapse – the next crisis will find the Europeans in better conditions.

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