Force de dissuasion The Force de frappe ( French : " strike force " ) , or Force de dissuasion after 1961 , is the designation of what used to be a triad of air - , sea - and land - based nuclear weapon s intended for " dissuasion " , the French term for deterrence . The French Nuclear Force , part of the Armed Forces of France , is the third largest nuclear - weapons force in the world , following the nuclear triads of the Russian Federation and the United States . France deactivated all landbased nuclear missiles . On 27 January 1996 , France conducted its last nuclear test ( in the South Pacific ) before signing the Comprehensive Nuclear - Test - Ban Treaty ( CTBT ) in September 1996 . In March 2008 , President Nicolas Sarkozy of France confirmed reports giving the actual size of France ' s nuclear arsenal and he announced that France will reduce its French Air Force - carried nuclear arsenal by 30 % , leaving the " Force de Frappe " with 250 warheads . History . The decision to arm France with nuclear weapons was made in 1954 by the administration of Pierre Mendès - France under the Fourth Republic . President Charles de Gaulle , upon his return to power in 1958 , solidified the initial vision into the well - defined concept of a fully independent " Force de Frappe " capable of protecting France from a Soviet or other foreign attack , independent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization , which President de Gaulle considered to be dominated by the United States to an unacceptable degree . In particular , France was concerned that in the event of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe , the US - already bogged down in the War in Vietnam and afraid of Soviet retaliation against the United States proper - would not come to the aid of its Allies in Western Europe . According to de Gaulle , France should never trust its defense and therefore its very existence to a foreign and thus unreliable protector . The strategic concept behind the " Force de Frappe " is one of countervalue , i . e . , the capacity to inflict so much damage on a potential ( and more powerful ) adversary ' s population that it will be deterred from attacking ( see Mutual Assured Destruction ) . This principle is usually referred to in French political debate as " dissuasion du faible au fort " ( " Weak - to - strong deterrence " ) and was summarized in a statement attributed to President de Gaulle himself : General Pierre Marie Gallois said " Making the most pessimistic assumptions , the French nuclear bombers could destroy ten Russian cities ; and France is not a prize worthy of ten Russian cities . " In his book " La paix nucléaire " ( 1975 ) , French Admiral de Joybert explained deterrence as : France carried out its first test of an atomic bomb in Algeria in 1960 and some operational French nuclear weapons became available in 1964 . Then , France executed its first test of the much more powerful hydrogen bomb over its South Pacific Ocean test range in 1968 ; this first hydrogen bomb was dropped from a strategic bomber . President de Gaulle ' s vision of the " Force de Frappe " featured the same triad of air - based , land - based and sea - based weapons deployed by both the United States and the Soviet Union . Work on these components had started in the late 1950s and was accelerated as soon as de Gaulle became the President of France . Air . Initially , the " Force de Frappe " consisted of an airbase component of the Command des Forces Aeriennes Strategique ( CFAS ) of the French Air Force , established in 1955 and operating 40 Sud Aviation Vautour IIB bombers . These were considered marginal for a strategic bomber role and work began almost immediately on a replacement . In May 1956 a requirement for what became the Dassault Mirage IV bomber was drawn up ; this bomber was designed to carry nuclear gravity bomb s over targets in the Eastern bloc at supersonic speeds and was declared ops in October 1964 . It has been modernized since then . The Mirage IV - P ( enetration ) version armed with the ASMP - A missile entered service in 1986 . All bomber versions of the Mirage IV retired in 1996 and replaced by Mirage 2000N ( entering service from 1988 ) . The new longer - ranged ASMP - A missile entered service 2009 and the Mirage 2000N is scheduled to be replaced by the Dassault Rafale F3 as of 2011 . Land . The land - based component of the French nuclear triad was added in August 1971 with operational readiness of 18 - silo based S2 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile s at Saint Christol in the Vaucluse region of southern France . Later , this land - based component was augmented with the mobile shortrange " Pluton " missile and " Hadès " missile , which were designed to be launched from the front lines at any approaching foreign army . To defend against a Soviet / Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany , these could be deployed with the French Army in the French Zone of Germany in western Germany . Since the French military judged that a full - scale invasion of Western Europe by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact Allies was unlikely to be stopped by conventional armaments , these short - range nuclear missiles were meant as a " final warning " ( " ultime avertissement " in French ) which would tell the aggressor that any further advances would trigger a nuclear armageddon upon its major cities and other important targets . The " Pluton " missile , introduced in 1974 , was retired from service and scrapped beginning in 1993 and its successor , the " Hadès " missile , was produced in limited numbers during the early 1990s and then withdrawn from the Army and placed in arsenal storage in 1995 . Next , the French Government decided to eliminate all of these missiles and the last " Hadès " was dismantled on 23 June 1997 . That was the end of the French mobile land - based nuclear missiles . The French fixed S3 IRBMs at the Plateau d ' Albion , were considered to be approaching obsolescence and also deemed to be no longer necessary following the fall of the Soviet Union , were also disposed of . The silos have been imploded and the missile base closed 1999 , eliminating the landbased missile leg of the French nuclear triad . Sea . The ocean - based , mobile component of the French nuclear triad entered service in December 1971 with the commissioning of its first ballistic missile submarine , the nuclear submarine " Le Redoutable " , which carried 16 M4 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles similar to the former US Polaris missile s . Since then , the ocean - based French nuclear weapons have been expanded to a squadron of 4 submarines , 1 of which always on patrol . Since 1985 , some of the French ballistic missile subs have become obsolete , retired and replaced by newer subs , also with 16 missile tubes apiece and carrying more - advanced French M45 missile . A new sub Le Terrible was put into service on 20 September 2010 armed with the M51 missile similar to the US Trident II . The Aeronavale or French Naval Aviation has operated a fleet of nuclear - armed aircraft since 1962 , with the Dassault Etendard IV on its Clemenceau class aircraft carrier s . The Etendard could be armed with AN - 52 nuclear gravity bombs . In 1978 , the Dassault Super Etendard entered service , giving the Aeronavale a stand - off nuclear strike ability via its Air - Sol Moyenne Portée ( ASMP ) nuclear missiles . As the Clemenceau class retired in 1997 - 2000 the Super Etendard remained in service on the succeeding R91 Charles - de - Gaulle . Since 2010 it carries Rafale F3 fighters armed with the upgraded ASMP - A nuclear missiles . Components . Land - based component . France no longer possesses land - based nuclear missiles . The IRBM base at the Plateau d ' Albion ( Vaucluse region ) was deactivated 1999 and its missiles scrapped . All French Army units equipped with short - range missiles such as the " Pluton " and the " Hadès " were disbanded , their missiles scrapped and their fissile nuclear materials recycled . Sea - based component . The French Navy includes a nuclear strategic branch , the " Force Océanique Stratégique " , which has contained as many as 5 nuclear - powered ballistic missile submarine s . Air - based component . The Armée de l ' Air ( ALA ) has 75 " ASMP " medium - range air - to - ground missile s with nuclear warhead s at its disposal , of which : The locations of the nuclear missiles are secret ( although many storage facilities are already known to the public , the number of warheads inside is classified and changes frequently ) . Range of strike aircraft is extended to long range currently by the KC - 135 and in the future by the forthcoming Airbus A330 MRTT aerial refueling fleet .