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Chirac threatens nuke attacks on 'terrorist' states
(AFP)
Updated: 2006-01-20 09:17
French President Jacques Chirac for the first time raised the threat of a
nuclear strike on any state that launches "terrorist" attacks against France.
He also said France's doctrine of nuclear deterrence has been extended to
protect the country's "strategic supplies", taken to mean oil.
"Leaders of any state that uses terrorist means against us, as well as any
that may be envisaging -- in one way or another -- using weapons of mass
destruction, must understand that they would be exposing themselves to a firm
and appropriate response on our behalf," he said.
"That response could be conventional, it could also be of another nature,"
Chirac said in a clear reference to nuclear weapons during a visit to a French
nuclear base in the northwestern region of Brittany.
French President Jacques Chirac delivers his
speech after visiting the French nuclear submarine the Vigilant in l'Ile
Longue, Western France, Thursday Jan. 19, 2006.
[AP] | The president said he was extending the
definition of "vital interests" protected by France's nuclear umbrella to
include allies and "strategic supplies".
The French press understood "strategic supplies" to include oil. Le Monde
newspaper said that was aimed "probably also at those countries from which
France imports part of its energy needs".
"If, theoretically, such interests were threatened by regional powers --
Iran, North Korea? -- France would react," the daily said.
The French president, however, did not single out any country in his speech.
He did indicate, though, that the previous Cold War stance of threatening
massive and widespread destruction against enemies had been changed to a
doctrine permitting a graduated and limited nuclear response.
"Faced with a regional power, our choice is not between doing nothing and
annihilating it," he said.
France has configured its nuclear arsenal to be able to respond "flexibly and
reactively" to any threat, by reducing the number of nuclear heads on certain
missiles on board its submarines, he said.
Such a move would enable it to conduct strikes on specific targets and limit
the zone of destruction.
"It would be up to the president of the republic to evaluate the potential
magnitude and consequences of unacceptable threats or blackmail against our
interests," he said.
Such a situation could lead a French head of state to declare those "vital
interests," Chirac said.
He said "the fight against terrorism is obviously one of our priorities," but
he added that "it is not because a new threat appears that it causes all the
others to disappear.
"Our world is marked by the emergence of affirmations of power that rely on
the possession of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons."
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