UN General Assembly
1987

In this spirit, France welcomed the goal of a 50 per cent reduction in Soviet and American strategic arsenals that was set at Reykjavik last year. Admittedly, halving these arsenals merely brings the Americans and Soviets back to the level prevailing at the end of the preceding decade when SALT II was signed. Nevertheless, this would clearly be a step in the right direction and would establish, as a real priority, not the illusory quest for denuclearization but the gradual and verified reduction of the excessively huge central arsenals. There is virtually no other serious alternative and it seems scarcely reasonable to envision the complete elimination of nuclear weapons within the foreseeable future.