This profile summarizes the major arms control agreements, regimes, initiatives, and practices that France subscribes to and those that it does not. It also describes the major weapons programs, policies, and holdings of France, as well as its proliferation record. This profile is one of a series focused on the arms control record and status of key states, all of which are available on the Arms Control Association’s Website at http://www.armscontrol.org.
Major Multilateral Arms Control Agreements and Treaties
|
Signed
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Ratified
|
|
| Biological Weapons Convention |
- - -
|
1984
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| Chemical Weapons Convention |
1993
|
1995
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| Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty |
1996
|
1998
|
|
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) |
- - -
|
1992
|
|
Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons |
1981
|
1988
|
| Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty |
1990
|
1992
|
| Outer Space Treaty |
1967
|
1970
|
| Ottawa Mine Ban Convention |
1997
|
1998
|
Export Control Regimes, Nonproliferation Initiatives, and Safeguards
Australia Group: Member.
Missile Technology Control Regime: Member.
Nuclear Suppliers Group: Member.
Wassenaar Arrangement: Member.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol: Yes, entered into force in 2004.
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: Participant.
Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation: Participant.
Proliferation Security Initiative: Participant.
UN Security Council Resolutions 1540 and 1673: France has filed reports on its activities to fulfill the resolutions and volunteered to provide assistance to other states.
Major Weapons Programs, Policies, and Practices
Biological Weapons:
Little is known about past French biological weapons activities, which reportedly included research on anthrax, botulinum toxin, cholera, ricin, rinderpest, and salmonella.[1] France is not suspected of having a current offensive biological weapons program.
Chemical Weapons:
France produced an arsenal of mustard gas and phosgene prior to World War II, but did not use them during the war. Afterward, France resumed offensive chemical weapons research and testing but quit these efforts in the late 1960s and destroyed its stockpile prior to 1988.
Missiles:
- Ballistic Missiles: In 1996, France decided to eliminate its nuclear-armed land-based ballistic missiles, leaving it with only submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). France is currently developing the M51 SLBM to replace older SLBMs outfitting France’s four ballistic missile submarines.
- Cruise Missiles: France has both conventional and nuclear-armed cruise missiles. The nuclear version is the Air-Sol-Moyenne Portée (ASMP). France has transferred cruise missiles to other countries, including the French-British Black Shaheen missile, a version of the Scalp cruise missile, to the United Arab Emirates.
Nuclear Weapons:
France is estimated to have approximately 350 nuclear warheads, most of which are designed for delivery by SLBMs. The other warheads would outfit the ASMP missiles carried by Mirage 2000N and Super Étendard planes.
France reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict. It has reaffirmed a 1995 pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states-parties to the NPT. At the same time, French President Jacques Chirac suggested in January 2006 that nuclear weapons would be an option for responding to states that conduct “terrorist” or any type of weapon of mass destruction attack against France.
France conducted 210 nuclear tests. The first test occurred Feb. 13, 1960, and the last test took place Jan. 27, 1996.
Chirac announced in February 1996 that France no longer produced fissile material, highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, for weapons purposes. He also vowed that France would dismantle its fissile material production facilities for arms. France is estimated to have approximately 30 metric tons of HEU and five metric tons of plutonium for weapons purposes.[2]
Conventional Weapons Trade:
France is a major conventional weapons exporter. A September 2007 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service found that only the United States and Russia surpassed France in global arms sales between 1999 and 2006. France tallied $26.9 billion in arms agreements for that period, while the United States and Russia completed transactions worth $123.5 billion and $54.3 billion, respectively.[3]
Proliferation Record
In 1957, France signed a major nuclear cooperation agreement with Israel even though it was generally understood that Israel was interested in potentially developing a nuclear arsenal. France halted the agreement in 1960.
France built the Osiraq reactor in Iraq despite warnings from other governments that the reactor might be used to support a secret Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Paris declined to rebuild the reactor after Israel bombed the plant in 1981.
Other Arms Control and Nonproliferation Activities
France has signed protocols stating its intent to respect and not threaten the use of nuclear weapons against states-parties to the Latin America, South Pacific, and African nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties. France has not signed the protocols for the Central Asian and Southeast Asian zones.
The French government supports negotiation of a fissile material cutoff treaty at the 65-member Conference on Disarmament.
France is a state-party to the Open Skies Treaty, which enables unarmed reconnaissance flights over all states-parties territories, and has signed the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty. Paris, along with other western capitals, is refusing to ratify the latter agreement until Russia fulfills commitments to withdraw its military forces from Georgia and Moldova.
France is participating in a Norwegian-led effort to negotiate a treaty to ban cluster munitions that “cause unacceptable harm to civilians,” and supported launching negotiations on cluster munitions through the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
Paris has engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear activities, which France suspects are intended to develop nuclear weapons. France supports ratcheting up sanctions on Iran to persuade it to halt certain activities, particularly uranium enrichment.
-Researched and prepared by Alex Bollfrass.
ENDNOTES
1. Lepick, Olivier, “French Activities Related to Biological Warfare, 1919-45,” Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945,” Geissler, Erhard, and van Courtland Mood, John Ellis, eds., Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 1999.
2. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report, 2007, October 2007, 164 pp.
3. Grimmett, Richard F., Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1999-2006, Congressional Research Service, September 26, 2007, 92 pp.