🇫🇷 France Nuclear Arsenal

In 2025, France has a total of 290 nuclear warheads, including 280 deployed. They made 201 tests between 1964 and 1996.

France’s "force de dissuasion" remains lean but credible, held at "strict sufficiency" level, a doctrine that keeps one ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) on silent patrol at all times while a twin-track air arm offers a calibrated "pre-strategic" strike option. Faced with a harsher security environment and doubts about U.S. guarantees, Paris is spending heavily – €413 billion under the 2024-30 Military Programming Act – to recapitalize every nuclear vector and position itself to extend deterrence to European partners if politics demand.

France fields roughly 290 operational warheads, unchanged since 2020, allocated to 48 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and about 50 air-launched cruise missiles; none are in storage for a land leg, which was abolished in the 1990s.

Readiness stays high: four Triomphant-class SSBNs rotate through patrol, refit and training cycles to guarantee continuous at-sea deterrence (CASD). Average patrol length is ~70 days, and the navy passed 500 deterrent patrols in 2018.

Modernization is under way on every layer:

• The M51.3 SLBM, flight-tested in November 2023, extends range and accuracy; work on the M51.4 follow-on and a life-extended Tête Nucléaire Océanique (TNO) warhead has begun.
• Air-launched ASMP-A missiles are receiving a mid-life ASMP-A-R refresh before being replaced by the ASN4G hypersonic cruise missile from 2035, paired with a new TNA-4G warhead.
• The €50 billion SNLE 3G programme will deliver four third-generation SSBNs from the early 2030s, engineered for reduced acoustic signatures and planned service beyond 2080.

Force structure and major vectors

Sea-based

• 4 × Triomphant-class SSBNs (Le Triomphant, Téméraire, Vigilant, Terrible) each carry 16 M51.2/3 SLBMs (4–6 MIRVs, 100–150 kt TNO).

Air-based

• French Air & Space Force: two squadrons of Rafale B/F4 fighters with ASMP-A-R; two Rafale F5 squadrons and ASN4G planned for 2035.
• French Navy: 12 carrier-borne Rafale M share the same missile set, giving the Charles-de-Gaulle (and its 2038 successor, PA-NG) a nuclear strike rôle.

Land-based

• None since the retirement of the Plateau d’Albion IRBMs and Hades SRBMs; France relies solely on the sea-air dyad.

Outlook

• Sub-surface dominance: SNLE 3G hull fabrication starts this decade; IOC is expected 2032–33, ensuring uninterrupted CASD through the century.
• Hypersonic transition: ASN4G will double standoff range (>1 000 km) and compress warning times, complicating adversary defences. Hypersonic flight tests begin around 2028.
• Budgetary gravity: Nuclear recapitalisation absorbs ~€5.6 bn a year and is crowding conventional procurement; delays could cascade if growth targets (3–3.5% GDP) slip.
• Strategic messaging: President Macron has opened the door to a "strategic dialogue" on extending France’s umbrella to EU partners, signalling readiness but also underscoring the finite size of the arsenal. Any formal guarantee would require new warheads or deeper integration and is therefore unlikely before the late-2030s.
• Arms-control headwinds: With no multilateral talks on the horizon and Russia, China and the U.S. all expanding forces, Paris sees little incentive to cut further; instead, it will aim to keep numbers stable while sharpening survivability and penetration.