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President Nicholas Sarkozy has announced that France will cut its airborne nuclear weapons by one third. France currently operates two thirds of the "nuclear triad", which consists of land based ballistic missiles, submarine launched missiles, and airborne nuclear weapons. France gave up the land based missiles several years ago, and is now cutting back on the bomber force. Alex Harrowell on French nuclear doctrine:
France, like Israel and the UK (although the UK doesn’t have a published doctrine), has a traditional policy of minimal deterrence. This argues that nuclear weapons are subject to diminishing returns; the consequences of having all your cities nuked once are not noticeably better than twice, three times, or more, so the certainty of retaliation is much more important than its scale. “Superiority” is probably meaningless, and anyway uneconomic if not actively dangerous.Of the declared nuclear powers, only Russia and the United States have robust capabilities in all three legs of the triad, although the Chinese submarine force is growing in capability. The United Kingdom operates only ballistic missile submarines, and the others have a combination of ballistic missile and airborne forces. This probably shouldn't be read as a step on the road to French nuclear disarmament. I think that there's a considerably greater chance that the United Kingdom could give up its weapons in the next couple of decades; the expense of replacing the Trident submarine launched ballistic missile will be immense, and Britain has a much closer relationship with the United States than France. Nevertheless, assuming a minimum deterrent (and ballistic missile submarines provide a nearly indestructible second-strike capability) the fewer the nuclear warheads, the better.--Robert Farley
