A French Blueprint for Security

...Thus the White Paper's emphasis on devising more mobile, compact nuclear weapons for aircraft and submarines...

...He believes the current missile program, launched by the Socialists two years ago, can be delayed until France has developed effective simulated tests...

...Although France is not yet envisioned as permanently reoccupying its chair at top-level nato meetings, it is anticipated that the Defense Minister and the Foreign Minister will be on hand whenever the President and the Prime Minister consider this essential to the national interest...

...What is feared at present is an increasingly inward-looking America, leaving its Western allies alone to cope with the post-Soviet instability in Eastern Europe...

...Indeed, for the Prime Minister cohabitation with Chirac over the coming year is certain to be much more difficult than it has been so far with Mitterrand...

...Leotard and Balladur argue that a final decision on the M5's future can be pushed off a year...

...Nothing is said that would distress France's Western allies...

...Research in this direction has already begun, and is being financed out of this year's defense budget...

...Leotard, in turn, apparently accused Chirac of trying to provoke a constitutional crisis...

...But the larger concern is the growing gap between the richer and poorer sectors of the earth, and the regional conflicts that are therefore expected to multiply...

...By commissioning the White Paper on defense, Balladur wished to demonstrate his statesmanlike qualities...

...Finally, it endorses France's role in peacekeeping operations under the UN flag, while discreetly suggesting the need for a less cumbersome chain of command (an obvious reference to the complaints of French generals in Bosnia...

...The government is committed to keeping the overall growth of its budget below 5 per cent...

...In addition, the Western European Union is viewed as a component of the Alliance rather than a rival, with members free to use the same forces in the two organizations...

...Nonmilitary threats" to national security, such as terrorism and the criminal activity of Mafias, are also mentioned as a cause of potential trouble...

...By then, of course, Mitterrand's successor will have been elected...

...The next logical step would be to adhere to the total ban on nuclear tests that America would like to see signed by 1996...

...Gaullist—and Leftist—mistrust of the United States seems to have had its day...

...Nevertheless, the document reviews events of the past few years—the political transition in Eastern Europe, the Gulf War, United Nations missions in countries like Somalia, Bosnia and Cambodia—to suggest what may lie ahead...

...France, it is cautioned, must be prepared to preempt attacks on its handful of possessions scattered around the planet, while working to preserve peace in Europe and North Africa...

...In this context it is noteworthy that Leotard contends there is no reason why France should not sign in 1996...

...While Chirac disagrees with Mitterrand on the freeze, the two share a desire to see France equipped with nuclear missiles that are smaller and harder to detect than its existing ones...

...The paper further observes that, as fellow nuclear powers, Britain and France should work together more closely than they have been...

...Because it sidesteps or tones down all points of disagreement between Mitterrand and the Balladur government, the White Paper has been variously criticized as bland or unimaginative by Socialist and Center-Right politicians alike...

...In acknowledging the need for France to master nuclear technology, the White Paper warns that the country "cannot afford to support, as it has done in the past, armaments industries in all fields," and advocates greater mutual exchanges with other European nations...

...Some experts say that by 2010 the present M45 missile, fitted onto submarines, and the S3D land missile will both be obsolete...

...Details are left out, but the government is prodded to speed up research aimed at perfecting simulated tests...

...That conventional forces will, if anything, have to be expanded in the coming decade is recognized...

...Everyone knows that Balladur, like Chirac, has his eyes on the presidency...

...One finds instead a vague reference to "France's place" in an increasingly "destructured, divided world" where supranational defense arrangements will have a decisive role...

...Mitterrand is determined to prolong the freeze and wants France to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty this year...

...Estimates place the total cost of the missile program somewhere between $7 billion and $11 billion...

...The eastern half of the Continent will continue to be a source of concern to the western half, it is felt, even though the dividing line of tension no longer runs across Europe...

...Yet perhaps it was by steering clear of confrontation that the authors produced what others see as a valid working document for whoever is elected next year to succeed Mitterrand...

...Given the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, the expectation is that nato will adapt itself to "new missions...

...New members, it is said, should be invited to join either club (or both...

...Hence the significance attached here to involving Washington in the search for solutions to the mess in ex-Yugoslavia...

...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...

...The work of a team of 25 military and civilian experts gathered around Balladur and Defense Minister Francois Leotard, the White Paper was presented to the press at the end of February and published in book form early in March...

...Mitterrand believes it will be possible to fit the current TN-75 warheads onto the new M5 missiles, thereby enabling France to dispense with tests...

...The loudest criticism has come from Jacques Chirac, leader of the neo-Gaullist Rally for the Republic Party...

...The cost for a new generation of nuclear submarines is put at a further $15 billion...

...Bahadur shares Leotard's position...

...In fact, a broad security framework is recommended that would include Russia, to contain its old expansionist instincts and avoid the re-emergence of military blocs...

...Defense expenditures today represent 3.38 per cent of GDP, down from 4 per cent a decade ago and 6 per cent in 1960...

...TRIGGERING CONTROVERSY A French Blueprint for Security BY JANICE VALLS-RUSSELL PARIS SOCIALIST PRESIDENT Francois Mitterrand and Center-Right Prime Minister Edouard Balladur may not belong to the same political camp, but their comfortable cohabitation has enabled France to speak with one voice on issues such as international trade and Bosnia...

...For the rest, however, it buries the mistrust of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (nato) that prompted de Gaulle to pull France out of the integrated military command in 1966...

...According to information leaked to the press by Balladur's office, the ban on field tests and the future of the missile program provoked a heated debate during a lunch attended by Leotard, Chirac and the Prime Minister, among others...

...Closer cooperation with one's partners by no means implies renouncing nuclear deterrence...

...Originally set up with Germany at Mitterrand's instigation in May 1992, it now embraces Italy and Spain, mainly for their communications, transport and intelligence facilities...

...But in doing so he has raised Chirac's hackles...

...When the late Pierre Beregovoy came to office in 1992, he announced a temporary freeze on France's nuclear tests in the Pacific, a decision seen as a sop to the Greens and strongly criticized by the Center-Right, then in opposition...

...It is the first assessment of France's military and strategic requirements since the collapse of the Berlin Wall...

...Their considerations are financial as well as strategic and political...

...The text remains faithful to General Charles de Gaulle's nuclear legacy and reasserts the need to preserve an independent force defrappe...

...The pretense of a "30-year friendship" between the two men no longer fools anyone...

...America is urged to maintain its commitment to the "security and defense of Europe," even if it opts for a more "flexible" and "less massive" presence on the Continent...

...Chirac insists new warheads are needed and must be tested...

...At the same time, the French Armed Forces would seek stronger ties with the other component forces of the Eurocorps...

...Extrapolation has its dangers, of course: Who was able to predict the implosion of the Communist bloc...

...The authors of the report, stressing the importance of international cooperation, define nato as "the main defense organization...

...Now a similar spirit of consensus pervades a White Paper that outlines the military and strategic options facing this country in the coming decade...

...The question is how to replace them...

...Still, a credible force de frappe is considered essential to prevent—or counter—an attack on a distant French possession...

...A bill scheduled to be presented to Parliament before the summer, which includes a number of the practical recommendations made in the White Paper, seems likely to slash several defense projects...

...Gone is the grand old notion of playing honest broker to the superpowers...

...It is after all de Gaulle's Constitution, he said, that gives the President the final say on matters of defense...

...In contrast, Chirac thinks France's deterrent capacity is being undermined by the freeze, and he allegedly accused the Defense Minister of caving in to Mitterrand...