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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060119/wl_nm/nuclear_arms_france_dc_2

France defends right to nuclear reply to terrorism

By Elizabeth Pineau
Thu Jan 19, 9:11 AM ET



BREST, France (Reuters) - France said on Thursday it would be ready to use
nuclear weapons against any state that carried out a terrorist attack against
it, reaffirming the need for its nuclear deterrent.

Deflecting criticism of France's costly nuclear arms program,     President
Jacques Chirac said security came at a price and France must be able to hit
back hard at a hostile state's centers of power and its "capacity to act."

He said there was no change in France's overall policy, which rules out the use
of nuclear weapons in a military conflict. But his speech pointed to a change
of emphasis to underline the growing threat France perceives from terrorism.

"The leaders of states who would use terrorist means against us, as well as
those who would consider using in one way or another weapons of mass
destruction, must understand that they would lay themselves open to a firm and
adapted response on our part," Chirac said during a visit to a nuclear
submarine base in northwestern France.

"This response could be a conventional one. It could also be of a different
kind."

Chirac, who is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, said all of France's
nuclear forces had been configured with the new strategy in mind and the number
of nuclear warheads on French nuclear submarines had been reduced to allow
targeted strikes.

It was the first time he had so clearly linked the threat of a nuclear response
to a terrorist attack.

Chirac, 73, did not say whether France would be prepared to use pre-emptive
strikes against a country it saw as a threat.

SECURITY TIGHT

France has had nuclear weapons since the 1960s and experts believe it has some
300 nuclear warheads.

"Against a regional power, our choice would not be between inaction or
annihilation," Chirac said in his first major speech on France's nuclear arms
strategy since 2001.

"The flexibility and reactivity of our strategic forces would enable us to
exercise our response directly against its centers of power and its capacity to
act."

France has tightened security since Islamist suicide bombers killed more than
50 people in attacks on London transport last July, and following the Madrid
bomb blasts which killed more than 190 people in March 2004.

Despite its strong opposition to the U.S.-led war in     Iraq, France remains a
target for Islamist militants because of its intelligence links with the United
States and Britain.

Last July, national police service chief Michel Gaudin said a radical Algerian
Islamist group, the GSPC, had been in contact with al Qaeda's leader in Iraq,
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, about launching attacks in France.

Since the end of the Cold War, questions have been raised about the usefulness
of the nuclear program, which makes up some 10 percent of the overall defense
budget.

Chirac's government is under pressure to cut spending as it struggles to bring
its public deficit below the     European Union's deficit limit of 3 percent of
gross domestic product.

"Our country's security and its independence have their price," Chirac said.

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