European Security

Updated: March 2013

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

*Passed with reservations, for list see: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Conventions/cppnm_reserv.pdf

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, and under France’s 1972 Law on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons, it is illegal to produce or stockpile these weapons. [2] They are believed to have stopped their program after World War II. [3]

Chemical Weapons:
During World War I, France produced and used mustard gas and phosgene. France maintained stockpiles of these weapons at the beginning of World War II, but did not use them. After World War II, France resumed offensive chemical weapons research and testing, and in the 1960s they manufactured Sarin and VX nerve agents. However, France destroyed its stockpiles of chemical weapons prior to 1988. [4]

Missiles:

• Ballistic Missiles: In 1996, France decided to eliminate its nuclear-armed land-based ballistic missiles, leaving it with only submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missiles (SLBMs). At the end of 2010, France deployed the M51 SLBM on its four ballistic missile submarines. [5] The M51 has a range of 8,000 km. The older models of the French SLBM are M4A/B and the M45, which both have a range of 6,000 km. [6]
• Cruise Missiles: France has both conventional and nuclear-armed cruise missiles. The nuclear version is the Air-Sol-Moyenne Portée (ASMP). France has transferred conventional cruise missiles to other countries, including the French-British Black Shaheen missile, a version of the Scalp cruise missile, to the United Arab Emirates. France tested the Scalp cruise missile in 2010. It has a range of 1,000 km. [7]

Nuclear Weapons:
As of 2011, France is estimated to have fewer than 300 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. France was the fourth country to conduct a nuclear weapon test.

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. As of 2011, France is estimated to have approximately 26 metric tons of HEU and 6 metric tons of plutonium for weapons purposes. France also possesses HEU and plutonium for its civilian nuclear power program. In its most recent IAEA disclosure, France said it had 56 tons of plutonium and 4.6 tons of HEU for civilian use. [8] France is one of the few countries that continues to reprocess spent nuclear fuel, and the accept fuel from foreign countries for that purpose. Currently, approximately 24 tons of foreign owned plutonium, mostly belonging to Japan, is stored in France.

Conventional Weapons Trade:
France is a major conventional weapons exporter. A September 2007 report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CRS) 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. [9] A 2011 CRS report found that from 2007 to 2011, France made nearly $11 billion in arms trade agreements with the developing world, making them again the third-leading supplier of arms after the U.S. and Russia. [10]

The French government has stated their support for an Arms Trade Treaty, which is being negotiated at the United Nations from July 2-27, 2012.

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 Osirak 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.

As of 2008, the French government supports the negotiation of a fissile material cutoff treaty, and has affirmed that the Conference on Disarmament is the appropriate forum for negotiations.

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. France, along with other NATO members, is refusing to ratify the latter agreement until Russia fulfills commitments to withdraw its military forces from Georgia and Moldova.

France signed and ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans “all use, stockpiling, production and transfer of Cluster Munitions.” [11] The treaty went into effect August 1, 2010.

France has been a supporter of security nuclear material, [12] and participated in both the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, DC and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit held in Seoul, South Korea.

France has engaged in negotiations with Iran such as the most recent rounds of the P5+1 talks over Iran’s nuclear activities, over its nuclear activities, which France suspects are intended to develop nuclear weapons. France supported ratcheting up sanctions on Iran to persuade it to halt certain activities, particularly uranium enrichment. This included a European Union-wide ban on importing Iranian oil that went into effect July 1, 2012.

-Researched and prepared by Alex Bollfrass. Updated by Lauren Weiss

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. “France: Practice Related to Rule 73. Biological Weapons.” International Committee of the Red Cross, page visited July 2012. http://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_cou_fr_rule73

3. “Chemical and Biological Weapons: Possession and Programs Past and Present.” James Martin Center For Nonproliferation Studies, updated March 2008. http://cns.miis.edu/cbw/possess.htm

4. “France Chemical.” King’s College London, page visited July 2012. http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/research/groups/csss/alpha/countries/France/France-Chemical.aspx

5. “M51 – Missile mer-sol balistique strategique.” Direction generale de l’armement, June 14, 2011. http://www.defense.gouv.fr/dga/equipement/dissuasion/m51-missile-mer-sol-balistique-strategique/%28language%29/fre-FR#SearchText=m51#xtcr=3

6. “Worldwide Ballistic Missile Inventories.” Arms Control Association, January 2012. http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/missiles

7. Irish, John. “AIRSHOW-France eyes sea-launched cruise missiles.” Reuters, June 20, 2011. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/20/airshow-mbda-missiles-idUSLDE75J1PV20110620

8. International Panel on Fissile Materials, Global Fissile Material Report, 2011, January 2012, 49 pp. (http://fissilematerials.org/library/gfmr11.pdf)

9. Grimmett, Richard F., Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1999-2006, Congressional Research Service, September 26, 2007, 92 pp.

10. Grimmett, Richard F., Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 2003-2010, Congressional Research Service, September 22, 2011, 89 pp.

11. Convention on Cluster Munitions – CCM, The Convention, page visited July 2012, http://www.clusterconvention.org/

12. “Events: Nuclear Security Summit (Seoul, March 26 to 28, 2012). France Diplomatie, page visited July 2012. http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/global-issues/disarmament-arms-control/arms-control-and-arms-trade/events-2129/article/nuclear-security-summit-seoul-26

Press Contact: Jeff Abramson, Deputy Director, (202) 463-8270 x109

Updated: August 2010

The Vienna Document is a confidence- and security- building measure in which members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agree to inspections and data exchanges in order to increase transparency of their conventional forces. With Russia’s suspension of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE Treaty) in 2007 and subsequent loss of transparency around conventional forces, the politically binding procedures and related reports associated with the document have become more important.

Background: The Vienna Document encompasses the goals of the Helsinki Final Act Decalogue of 1975 and incorporates them into a politically binding document. The Helsinki Final Act principles created the initial confidence- and security- building measures that would be elaborated upon, first in the Stockholm Document (1986) and later in the first Vienna Document. The first document, Vienna Document 1990, would have successors in Vienna Documents 1992, 1994, and 1999. All of the Vienna Documents have sought to strengthen the transparency and openness in the OSCE area.

Document Status: Vienna Document implementation is discussed weekly at the Forum for Security Co-operation (an OSCE body) and at annual meetings in Vienna.  Signatories to the document are the fifty-five member states of the OSCE. [2]

During the most recent Annual Implementation Assessment Meeting (AIAM), held March 2-3, 2010, the OSCE’s Conflict Prevention Centre reported that the Vienna Document’s “overall implementation level has remained relatively stable and high." [3] Per the Meeting’s Consolidated Summary, although the number of inspections and evaluations fell in 2009 from their 2008 levels, the number was still above the five-year average. There is some speculation that the economic conditions facing Vienna Document countries could play a part in the lower numbers.

The 2010 State Department report on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments, which considered treaty and agreement compliance from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2008, found that “compliance with VD99 has been good.” [4] The report acknowledged that some states did not submit their information for the December meeting but that “most” of the States eventually submitted the required paperwork.

In regards to the sharing of information under the Vienna Document, there was conversation at the March 2010 AIAM that changes may need to be made to the document because of new technology, capabilities, and military structures that have not been accounted for.

Information Exchange: Under the Vienna Document, countries agree to an Annual Exchange of Military Information where information regarding “military forces concerning the military organization, manpower and major weapon and equipment systems” will be shared with other member states. [5] A country that plans to change the structure of their military forces for a period longer than 21 days (such as increasing the size of a combat unit) reports the change to other states. States also share information about their weapon systems and if there are plans to deploy new systems (if so, countries share information about these systems). Under Article II, countries are also expected to provide information regarding their defense planning.  Under a general considerations report, a state provides information regarding their military structure (including specific unit and formation information), major weapons and equipment systems, and their hardware. The specific equipment that is covered by the Vienna Document can be found in Article I.

The Vienna Document also says that states should inform other states if “certain military activities” will take place, which means a military activity will be subject to notification whenever it involves at any time during the activity:

• at least 9,000 troops, including support troops, or
• at least 250 battle tanks, or
• at least 500 armored combat vehicles, as defined in Annex III, paragraph (2), or
• at least 250 self-propelled and towed artillery pieces, mortars and multiple rocket-launchers (100 mm calibre and above). [7]

States also can invite other member states to militarily significant actions for observation purposes. [8] There are some constraints on states, including limits on the number of exercises that can be carried out within a specific timeframe under certain conditions. [9]

If a Vienna Document state has concerns about a militarily significant action, they can request an explanation of the action from the party responsible. If there are concerns after an explanation is offered, the concerned state can request a meeting with the acting party.  Participation in the meeting will be open to any states interested in the action. Either party can also request a meeting of all states, which would be conducted as a joint Permanent Council and Forum for Security Cooperation meeting, where recommendations from states will be considered.

Process: The Vienna Document 1999 encourages countries to host visits to military facilities, create military contacts, and hold joint exercises and demonstrations of military equipment as ways of increasing confidence between states. [10] By November 15, states are expected to submit a schedule of prior notification military activities for the next year.  According to the Consolidated Summary of the 19th Annual Implementation Assessment Meeting , held March 3-4, 2009, “a total of 109 inspection visits in 2008 had resulted in more than 1,000 arms control personnel having the opportunity to meet their counterparts and improve their relations.” [11]

Under the Document, states can host three inspections on their territory per year and do not have to exceed that limit if they do not wish.  Inspection teams observe notable military activities.  In addition to inspection visits, there are also evaluation visits, which verify data that is part of the information exchange.  A state must host at least one and no more than 15 evaluation visits a year (number of visits is determined by number of units). [13]

Article XI calls for an Annual Implementation Assessment Meeting where states will have the opportunity to discuss questions of implementation, operations, and questions that may have arisen from information that has been exchanged.  The meeting, hosted by the Forum for Security Cooperation, is also an opportunity to discuss confidence- and security- building measures.  If a state has not offered their data at the Annual Exchange of Military Information, held no later than December 15, they are expected to offer an explanation as to why it has not been submitted and an expected date for contribution.

Amendments to Vienna Document 1999: A May 19, 2010 decision by the Forum for Security Cooperation (FSC.DEC/1/10) created a procedure for continuous updating of the Vienna Document, under which decisions that update document text will be called Vienna Document Plus. [14] Every five years the Vienna Document will be reissued with the changes from “Plus” incorporated.  This will not delay the entry into force of changes, which will be effective immediately, unless expressly stated otherwise.  Decisions in Vienna Document Plus will supersede those of Vienna Document 1999 as they are the most recent.

-Researched and prepared by Valerie Pacer

[1] For a more detailed description of the Decalogue, see European Navigator’s explanation http://www.ena.lu/helsinki_decalogue_august_1975-2-19193

[2] OSCE member states are: Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Holy See, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan

[3] Consolidated Summary of the 2010 Annual Implementation Assessment Meeting (AIAM)

[4] See “Vienna Document 1999 on the Negotiations on Confidence- and Security- Building Measures (page 36) ”http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/july2010compliancereport072710.pdf

[5] See Article I “Annual Exchange of Military Information” for specific information that is exchanged: http://www.osce.org/documents/fsc/1999/11/4265_en.pdf

[6] Numbers of Submissions can be found in the 2009 AIAM Consolidated Summary http://www.osce.org/documents/fsc/2009/03/37422_en.pdf, 2010 AIAM Consolidated Summary and at http://dtirp.dtra.mil/TIC/synopses/gemi.cfm

[7] Vienna Document 1999, Article V

[8] See Article VI “Observation of Certain Military Activities” for an explanation of observation procedures.

[9] See Article VIII “Constraining Provisions” for thresholds and limits of activities.

[10] See Articles III “Risk Reduction” and IV “Contacts” of VD99 for recommendations.

[11] Consolidated Summary of the 19th Annual Implementation Assessment Meeting 2009 http://www.osce.org/documents/html/pdftohtml/37422_en.pdf.html , pg. 49

[12] Numbers of evaluation and inspections can be found in the AIAM Consolidated Summary 2009 http://www.osce.org/documents/fsc/2009/03/37422_en.pdf and AIAM Consolidated Summary 2010.

[13] See Article IX “Compliance and Verification” for an explanation of measures, including inspections and evaluations.

[14] “Decision No.1/10 Establishing a Procedure for Incorporating Relevant FSC Decisions Into the Vienna Document” (FSC.DEC/1/10) http://www.osce.org/documents/fsc/2010/05/44706_en.pdf