Europe needs to rebuild a new defense architecture, and that includes nuclear deterrence, especially now that the New START treaty limiting the American and Russian arsenals has expired, the French president said.
Earlier on Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed that talks were ongoing with Paris about how France’s nuclear weapons could contribute to Europe’s security. Pressed about Merz’s comments, Macron said he will provide more “details” in his upcoming speech.
France and some European countries are looking to see “how we can articulate our national doctrine with special cooperation, common security interest, this is what we’re doing for the first time in history [with Germany],” Macron told the audience.
Despite multiple reports, including by POLITICO, that the Future Combat Air System is at a dead end, Macron said he still “believed” in the fighter jet project with Germany and Spain.
Earlier this week, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius struck a much less enthusiastic tone. A defense official also told POLITICO on Friday that Airbus, one of the project’s main contractors, was weighing participation in the rival Global Combat Air Programme led by Italy, the U.K. and Japan.
Macron also backed more promising European defense industrial cooperations, such as a project to jointly develop deep precision strike capabilities known as ELSA with a group of European countries including Germany and Poland, and another one called JEWEL with Germany about early-warning systems to track missiles.
Victor Goury-Laffont and Jordyn Dahl contributed to this report.