Nuclear weapons of France

France fields the world's fourth-largest arsenal: a military stockpile of about 290 warheads, the January 2026 estimate before the increase ordered in March 2026, with some 280 of them deployed, the highest deployment ratio of any nuclear power. The last official figure was "under 300", given in February 2020; France now publishes none. The force de frappe is fully independent: warheads, missiles and delivery platforms are designed and built nationally, and France does not participate in NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements or its Nuclear Planning Group.

The deterrent is a dyad. Four Triomphant-class submarines based at Île Longue maintain continuous at-sea deterrence with the M51 missile, while Rafale squadrons of the Strategic Air Forces carry the supersonic ASMPA-R cruise missile, the life-extended version in service since 2024 and tested from a carrier-based Rafale M in 2025. SIPRI counts about 50 nuclear-capable Rafales, 40 land-based and 10 on the carrier, whose warheads are normally kept in storage. The M51.3, with the TNO-2 warhead, entered service in October 2025, and the M51.4 development contract was signed in August 2025. The next generation is in development: the SNLE 3G submarines, whose first boat, named L'Invincible on 2 March 2026, is planned to commission in 2036, and the ASN4G hypersonic missile with its TNA-2 warhead.

France tested first at Reggane in the Algerian Sahara in February 1960 and last in the Pacific in 1996. It has since ratified the CTBT, irreversibly dismantled its Pacific test site and its fissile-material production plants, and retired the land-based leg it once operated on the plateau d'Albion.

Paris is investing across the board: the SNLE 3G submarines and the ASN4G missile are funded through the 2024-2030 military programming law, and on 18 March 2025 the government designated Luxeuil as a fourth strategic air base, to field two Rafale F5 squadrons with ASN4G by 2035, the first expansion of the airborne component in decades, which SIPRI says roughly doubles the nuclear-capable Rafale force.

On 2 March 2026, at Île Longue, President Macron ordered an increase in the number of warheads, the first since the early 1990s, and announced that France would no longer disclose the size of its stockpile. He also launched an "advanced deterrence": French strategic air forces to deploy to partner countries as circumstances require, beginning with joint exercises. Eight countries expressed interest: Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark, and a Franco-German nuclear steering group was created. The decision to employ the weapons remains, by doctrine, strictly French. With the United Kingdom, the Northwood Declaration of 10 July 2025 stated that the two forces "can be coordinated"; the UK-France Nuclear Steering Group met for the first time on 10 December 2025, when British officials observed the French air-component exercise Poker.