Chirac threatens nuclear attack on states sponsoring terrorism

President Jacques Chirac has dropped a political bombshell by threatening to retaliate with nuclear strikes against any state found to be responsible for a large-scale terrorist attack on France.

In the biggest shift in French nuclear doctrine for 40 years, M. Chirac revealed that the force de frappe – the French nuclear deterrent – had already been reconfigured to allow it to destroy the “power centres” of any state which sponsored a terrorist assault.
He also raised once again an idea that he first floated in 1995 that the British and French nuclear deterrents should be rededicated to the defence of the entire European Union. In future, he said, France should regard its allies and its sources of strategic supplies – in other words oil – as covered by its nuclear umbrella.

Independent Online Edition