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Regarding the use of AI on defense matters generally, French Defense Minister Florence Parly has indicated that the development of new technologies by France would be pursued following three principles: "abiding by international law, maintaining a sufficient human control, and ensuring the permanent responsibility of the chain of command." 1
In 2022, France supported a joint statement with the United Kingdom and United States according to which the three states "will maintain human control and involvement for
all actions critical to informing and executing sovereign decisions concerning nuclear weapons employment". 2
The 1972 Livre Blanc gave information about the number of ballistic missiles in service as well as nuclear squadrons 1. President Mitterrand gave more precise information in his speech of 1994 2. President Hollande announced in 2015 that France holds three sets of 16 M51 intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles (48) and 54 nuclear air-launched cruise missiles 3. In its latest transparency report, France confirmed that it holds three sets of 16 M51 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (48) and 54 nuclear air-launched cruise missiles (ASMPA) 4.
Since the White Book on Defense of 1972, France has been open about the various components of its nuclear deterrent, and in particular has indicated which types of delivery vehicles it possessed and operated 1. Official documents and speeches have therefore confirmed that France currently operates intercontinental submarine-launched ballistic missiles which are carried by its nuclear submarine and airborne cruise missiles which are carried by its Rafale aircrafts (2 and 3. The submarine-launched ballistic missiles’ range is not specified but estimated between 6000 and 10000 km. The airborne cruise missile is estimated at around 500 km. 4 Both delivery vehicles are only dedicated to the nuclear mission.
Historically, it also held nuclear ground-launched ballistic missiles of various types and gravity bombs but those have been dismantled as announced in various documents. 1
France stopped the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons in 1992 and highly enriched uranium in 1996. President Chirac announced during a TV interview that the Pierrelatte facility would close on 22 February 1996. 1 The decommission of the Pierrelatte enrichment plant started in 1997 and will continue until 2040. The dismantlement of the G1, G2 and G3 plutonium producing reactors at Marcoule has been completed 2. Moreover, France promotes the fact and has organised several visits for international observers on the former production sites. 3
France has not explained its decision not to communicate on its holdings of fissile material. It has stated in 2000 in the framework of the NPT Review Conference that it does not have any weapon-grade fissile material in excess of its military requirements 2. France has stated on many occasions that it has stopped the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons in 1992 (plutonium) and 1996 (highly enriched uranium). It dismantled its fissile material production factories in an irreversible fashion in the 2000s 1.
France has announced publicly that since 2017, it has been committed to renewing its two nuclear components. The strategic oceanic forces will be equipped with a new increment of the M51 intercontinental ballistic missile, and the third generation of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines has been launched. The four submarines of the new class should enter into service starting from 2025. The airborne nuclear component will be equipped with new hypersonic cruise missiles (ASN4G) including new warheads. This missile is being developed by MBDA and should also become operational starting in 2035. It will be initially integrated on the Rafale F5 aircraft, and later on the Next Generation Fighter (NGF), an aircraft that should be produced in the framework of the European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme 1. Budgets and rationales are published by the Parliament on these programmes, with outputs from programme managers of the Ministry of Armed Forces. 2
France has been increasingly transparent on its arsenal and doctrine over the years, even if it chooses not to discuss some issues for national security reasons 5.
Regarding the nuclear doctrine, it is made public through regular presidential speeches but also White Books or Strategic reviews which are updated regularly. France translates key documents in English and has organised events, for instance in the margins of the NPT Review Conferences, to explain and discuss the French doctrine 1. It has published detailed information 2, in particular in the NPT contexts, related to specific elements of the doctrine, for instance negative security assurances 1.
In addition, the French government funds the publication and translation of work on French nuclear deterrence which have informative purposes. It is the case for instance of books written by former or current officials, or of non-officials commissioned by the French government to popularise the French doctrine 6.
Concerning the arsenal, France does not give a precise number regarding its warheads, but a ceiling (less than 300) 3. It does not communicate at all on fissile material holdings, and prefers to emphasise the fact that the country has stopped producing fissile material for nuclear weapons and has dismantled its facilities 1. However, it is more forthcoming on information on delivery vehicles and platforms, with successive presidents updating the public on the number of ballistic missiles or cruise missiles that are being possessed by the French strategic forces, as well as the number of submarines and aircrafts that are dedicated to the nuclear mission (3 and 4. Information is also voluntarily supplied regarding modernisation programmes, in particular in order to inform the Parliament, which votes for credits for the deterrent. Since the early 2000s, information has been provided to the public on budgets, including regarding strategic systems and support missions for the nuclear deterrence mission.
More generally, France has stated that it supports transparency as a strategic risk reduction tool, and as long as it does not create prejudices for national security. It is seen as a confidence-building mechanism and a way to limit misperceptions and the risk of misunderstanding. In that sense, France takes part for instance in the Hague Code of Conduct against the proliferation of ballistic missiles but also other multilateral arms control mechanisms (space registration convention, UNROCA, …). 5
France has promoted and publicised some voluntary transparency gestures it took over the years, in particular the invitation of international visitors to its former fissile material production facilities, its former dismantled ground-based missile site, and its former nuclear test site in French Polynesia 1. It also held two transparency visits in Kourou, on the space launch site, as part of the implementation of the HCoC.
Since 1982, France has provided negative security assurances to more than 100 non-nuclear-weapon states that comply with their non-proliferation obligations 1. This commitment by France, as well as by other nuclear-weapon states, is enshrined in Resolution 984 adopted by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 1995, which was reiterated in UNSC Resolution 1887 (2009) and Resolution 2310 (2016). In 2015, the negative assurances given by France to non-nuclear-weapon states were repeated by the President of the Republic, who recognised that these were ‘legitimate’ expectations.
On 4 August 2022, the United States, France and the United Kingdom published a joint statement at the NPT Review Conference reiterating their commitment to security assurances for non-nuclear-weapon states 2.
France specifies that its negative security assurances apply to countries that are part of the Non-proliferation Treaty and comply with their non-proliferation obligations and does not affect its right of legitimate self-defence as recognised by the UN Charter 3.
In 2020, President Macron recalled the French policy regarding the employment of nuclear weapons 1. It was formalised most recently in the actualised National Strategic Review of July 2025 2: nuclear weapons are limited to "extreme circumstances of self-defence", the President is the only one in charge of determining if an attack, coming from a state, but regardless of its form (nuclear or not), endangers the vital interests of the country. If so, he may decide to employ nuclear weapons in order to inflict "absolutely unacceptable damages" upon an adversary, "a risk out of all proportion to the gains that a potential attacker could expect." The French doctrine also states that if an adversary does not perceive that it has infringed upon France's vital interests, a warning strike may be realised to reestablish deterrence. France specifies that nuclear weapons are political weapons and refuse any notion of nuclear warfighting. 3
France has been a signatory state of the Hague Code of Conduct against the Proliferation of Ballistic Missiles (HCoC) since its adoption in 2002 and notifies its ballistic missile tests and space launches in the framework of the Code.
According to its NPT Report, between January 2015 and January 2025, France issued 97 pre-launch notifications, equal to the number of French space and ballistic missile launches conducted during that period. In fulfillment of one of the provisions of the HCoC, France hosted in 2011 an inspection by international observers at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou (French Guiana). A second visit to Kourou was organized in December 2022. 1
Nuclear exercises conducted by the airforce are announced ahead of time via the NOTAM system and planned in a previsible manner. 2
While France does not mention these technologies explicitly in its doctrine, the French doctrine clearly indicates that the employment of nuclear weapons in response to an attack does not depend on the type of technology used to create damages, but the level of damages and whether they put in jeopardy the vital interest of the state. This can include strikes from non-nuclear strategic weapons, but also chemical, biological attack, or large-scale conventional attacks.
Non-nuclear strategic technologies, which are not labeled as such, but may include air and missile defense as well as deep strike capacities, are mentioned in the official doctrine as capacities that may come as a support for nuclear deterrence, to increase its credibility. However, the French nuclear doctrine preserves a fundamental barrier between conventional operations and a potential use of nuclear weapons.1
France reveals that it is holding less than 300 nuclear weapons. President François Mitterrand gave precise numbers on the French stockpile for the first time in his speech of 1994, numbering almost 500 weapons 1. In 2008, President Sarkozy mentioned the reductions in the stockpile operated since the end of the Cold War and indicated that the French arsenal would from then on be composed of less than 300 nuclear warheads 2. President Hollande and Macron repeated this information respectively in 2015 3 and 2020 4. The approximate data is also available in France's NPT transparency reports 5.
France does not currently reveal any information on the yield of its two types of nuclear warheads, the Oceanic Nuclear Warhead (TNO) used on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and the Airborne Nuclear Warhead (TNA) used on airborne cruise missiles. President Mitterrand declared in 1994 that a warhead used for then-used submarine-launched submarines had a yield of 150 kilotonnes, and that the warheads deployed on then-used cruise missiles was 300 kilotonnes 1. No information has been published ever since at the official level on the issue of yield, and information reported by the media is never backed by credible assessments. The manufacturer of the cruise missiles that carries the TNA only indicated on its website that its yield is “medium energy” 2.