Chirac Prepared to Use Nuclear Strike Against Terror States

Jacques Chirac said yesterday that France was prepared to use nuclear weapons against any country that carried out a state-sponsored terrorist attack against it.

In a speech aimed at defending France's €3bn-a-year (£2bn) nuclear arms programme, the president said the country's nuclear strike force was "not aimed at dissuading fanatical terrorists", but states who used "terrorist means" or "weapons of mass destruction" against France.

Some commentators suspected that Mr Chirac was indulging in some international sabre-rattling during his visit to a naval base near the port of Brest, in the north-west, to bolster his tarnished image at home. "This response could be conventional. It could also be of another nature," Mr Chirac told the crew of one of the four nuclear submarines that carry 85% of France's nuclear warheads.

But he said the country had changed its nuclear strategy, configuring its strike force to react "flexibly" to any new threat, particularly from regional powers. "The flexibility and reactivity of our strategic forces would enable us to exercise our response directly against its centres of power and its capacity to act."