The nuclear armament situation in France

Transcription

1 15 th International Castiglioncello Conference Critical Issues in the Pathway to Nuclear Disarmament Pugwash-USPID Joint meeting September 27-29, 1913 Castello Pasquini Castiglioncello (Livorno) The nuclear armament situation in France as seen by «Armes Nucléaires STOP» Luigi MOSCA 1

2 First a short reminder : - France signed the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1992, the Treaty stopping the production of fissile materials in 1996, and the Treaty stopping the Nuclear weapons tests of any type in France in addition decreased the number of its weapons from 600 to about 300 units and dismantled the Plateau d Albion terrestrial launching base in France present armament consist of : 3 submarines x 16 missiles x 6 weapons 300 weapons with at least 1 submarine permanently in state of alert 2

3 The French doctrine about Nuclear deterrence is essentially invariant under right or left governments and is based on the need of defending the vital interests of the French Nation, so that Nuclear deterrence is considered a kind of life insurance of the Nation. The former President, Nicolas Sarkozy, considered also the possibility of a first nuclear strike in case these vital interests would be threatened by an enemy. But an increasing number of opponents is raising up : not only NGO s, but also politicians and military officers, such as Michel Rocard (former Prime minister), General Norlain, Paul Quilès (former Defence minister!),.. and this new situation is now admitted even by the French President, François Hollande. 3

4 Here are some examples of this voice of the opponents : Pour un désarmement nucléaire mondial, seule reponse à la prolifération anarchique by Alain Juppé, Bernard Norlain, Alain Richard et Michel Rocard - Le Monde du 14 Octobre 2009 EXIGEZ! Un désarmement nucléaire total by Stéphane Hessel and Albert Jacquard (with L. Mosca and D. Lalanne as co-authors) - Observatoire des armements - April 2012 Nucléaire, un mensonge français (Réflexions sur le désarmement nucléaire) by Paul Quilès - April 2012 Arrêtez la bombe by Paul Quilès, with Bernard Norlain and Jean-Marie Collin - February

5 On the other hand, the Senate, after having recommended to maintain the deterrence force at least until 2070, pursues with the following incroyable statement : «S il nous fallait dessiner aujourd hui un format d armées partant de zéro, il est fort probable que la nécessité d acquérir une force de frappe nucléaire, avec de surcroît deux composantes, ne ferait pas par3e de nos ambi3ons de défense. Nous concentrerions vraisemblablement nos efforts pour contrer des cyber- acaques, la grande criminalité ou les groupes terroristes agissant sur notre territoire.» («Senate Information Report Nb. 668, 12 July 2012, page 37) 5

6 Several associations are very active in order to reach an awareness of the public opinion to produce a pressure at the political level : - Le mouvement de la Paix - Armes Nucléaires STOP (network of 20 associations) - Observatoire des armements - Maison de vigilance - IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War) - MAN (Mouvement pour une Alternative Non-violente) - Sortir du Nucléaire - Pugwash - Global Zero - The ICAN-France Campaign -.. 6

7 Here are some examples of their initiatives : - Colloque : Dissuasion nucléaire : ouvrons le débat - 25 Janvier 2013 à l Assemblée Nationale (EELesVerts, Observatoire des armements, PNND France) - Participation au Forum Social Mondial à Tunis - Mars 2013 (Mouvement de la Paix, ICAN-France, Armes Nucléaires STOP, IPPNW) - Participation to the PrepCom NPT, Geneva, April 2013 (Armes Nucléaires STOP, IPPNW, ICAN-France, Mouvement de la Paix - Conference : Science, technologie et culture de la paix Université d Evry May 2013 (link : (Armes Nucléaires Stop -IPPNW, etc.) - Fast for Hiroshima and Nagasaki memory and for disarmament : from 6 to 9 August 2013 in Paris, Burghfield (UK) and Büchel NATO base (Germany) (Armes Nucléaires STOP, Sortir du Nucléaire, ICAN, Action AWE, JETZT) - «Croisière de la Paix» à Paris, sur la Seine - 22 Septembre 2013 (Mouvement de la Paix, ICAN- France, Armes Nucléaires STOP, IPPNW) 7

8 Moreover, at Armes Nucléaires STOP, we are at the origin of the little book for a large audience: EXIGEZ! Un désarmement nucléaire total, then finalized with Albert Jacquard and Stéphane Hessel ( copies sold in 2012 // an Italian updated version should hopefully be published in December, this year) On the other hand we obtained from François Hollande to be received at the Élysée by his Defence adviser, Christian Lechervy, in order to discuss about our divergences. This quite informal meeting (of 1.5 hours) has been interesting especially because Mr Lechervy openly mentioned the difficulties they meet in maintaining their strategy for the nuclear deterrence (la force de dissuasion ). A first urgent problem is to find something to be done which can demonstrate that France is contributing to a nuclear disarmament in the world : this in view of the NPT revision in (They are thinking about ) 8

9 Our analysis is that Nuclear Deterrence is a suicidal illusion, and also a driving force of proliferation, while the French Government consider that its first priority is to stop the proliferation process BEFORE stopping the modernisation of its nuclear armament and perform a real disarmament : a really bootstrap and so impasse situation! A second problem is the risk that UK decide not to renew its nuclear armament (Trident ) : this is the reason of the French-UK cooperation Teutatès (Valduc - Aldermaston) started by the former French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and now continued with François Hollande. A similar attitude of France concerns a possible elimination of the NATO weapons based in Europe The essential motivation of these attitudes of the French government is to avoid the risk that France could stay alone as nuclear military State in Europe and so support alone the responsibility of the Russian maintain of their tactical weapons! 9

10 Recently two events open a window of hope towards a nuclear disarmament : 1) the Oslo Conference on the humanitarian consequences of a nuclear war, organized last March (2013) by Norway with several NGO s and the participation of about 130 countries, Conference which will be followed by a second session in Mexico next year (February 2014) 2) the creation by the ONU General Assembly of an «Open- Ended-Working-Group» (OEWG), with the scope of formulating new proposals for the disarmament, approved by the majority of countries. The unanimity not being required, there will be no possibility of vetoes! 10

11 The hope is that these two initiatives could lead to the possibility of obtaining a Treaty forbidding the production, the maintenance, the modernisation, the threat and a fortiori the use of nuclear armaments. The interesting point is that such a Treaty (as in the case of the antipersonnel mines) would apply also to the countries which didn t sign it! Conclusion : let s be optimistic. also if, at least for the moment, the French government is not favourable to this approach 11

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