In 1996, French President Jacques Chirac outlined a new nuclear policy that would greatly reduce its arsenal, fund anti-proliferation programs in Russia and end its creation of future weapons-grade nuclear fuel.

"We must take advantage of the respite offered by the current strategic situation to rethink our nuclear posture. The choice of our means must be based on the principles of sufficiency and credibility which have, moreover, always been ours," Chirac said in a speech to the nation's military college.

Chirac's reorganization of the French military, which included sweeping changes to the army and navy, also impacted the country's nuclear forces. Under the new plan, France scrapped its land-based, long-range missile program, choosing instead to rely on submarine- and aircraft-launched missiles to deliver its nuclear weaponry.

The French government had already ended production of weapons-grade plutonium and during the 1996 reassessment also decided to close and dismantle its uranium enrichment facility. These decisions made France the only nuclear superpower to publicly declare its intention to cease production of nuclear material for weapons and to actually begin dismantling the facilities.

That is not to say France does not continue to possess a sizeable nuclear stockpile. Although the overhaul further reduced the number of nuclear warheads from a high of approximately 550 in the early 1990s to somewhere between 350 and 400, the 1996 review included new money to modernize many of the nuclear-capable weapons systems in the French arsenal.

The French unveiled their new attack-bombers, built with the capability of launching a nuclear strike in mind, the same year the government ended its land-based missile system. The military has also continued to fund the construction of new nuclear missile submarines. Currently the four in service carry the bulk of the nation's nuclear warheads.

For largely budgetary and diplomatic reasons, the French government has scaled back its spending on nuclear weapons, but has pledged to maintain a nuclear force to ensure its stated policy of "dissuasion," their version of America's deterrence.

"The French concept of dissuasion will continue to be defined as the will and ability to intimidate adversaries to such an extent that they are deterred from threatening our vital interests, regardless of who they are, what levels of damage they are prepared to suffer and what they stand to gain," the French government's official 1994 "White Paper on Defense" explains.

		French Archives French scientists were some of the first to study nuclear power and weapons.

This concept of defending French interests above all others is at the core of the French nuclear effort. Founded in the wake of America's use of nuclear weapons to end World War II, the French nuclear weapons effort struggled to get off the ground as political turmoil shook the country in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

It took a political crisis to finally herald the building of the French bomb. In 1956 the French partnered with the British and Israeli governments to attack Egypt, which had seized the Suez Canal, a vital link for British and French goods and military planners. The attack prompted the Soviet Union to threaten nuclear war against the U.K. and France. It also angered America, and President Eisenhower's condemnation of the attack triggered an economic panic in Britain that led to its withdrawal from the military campaign. This angered the French and further revealed Britain's growing dependence on U.S. support.

"In France, the feeling of dependence on Americans was expressed no longer just in regard to defense, but also in regard to foreign policy," the independent think tank the Federation of American Scientists wrote. "The French felt the American attitude to be a kind of vassalage to the extent that parliament affirmed the need to possess the nuclear bomb."

In response, France created the Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy to oversee the creation of the country's first atomic weapon. Although the French program started later than any of the other "big five" nuclear powers, it was built upon a strong foundation of nuclear physics dating back before World War II.

Backed enthusiastically by French President Charles De Gaulle, the research efforts quickly paid off and less than four years later France detonated its first nuclear weapon in the deserts of Algeria. France quickly deployed strategic warheads similar to the one tested in 1960, but by the mid-'60s began to focus on testing the much larger hydrogen bomb.

Little is known about the hydrogen efforts headed by nuclear physicist Roger Dautry except that on Aug. 24, 1968, the French detonated a powerful 2.4 megaton nuclear device in the South Pacific. It was the largest nuclear device the European nation would ever detonate.

Testing had moved to the Pacific from Algeria after the North African nation became independent, but the French efforts drew much fire and criticism. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, the French government continued an aggressive policy of nuclear testing, focused largely on French-controlled, uninhabited atolls in the Pacific Ocean. The testing, the most public of the efforts of the nuclear powers, angered many in environmental and peace movements who saw the explosions as unnecessary and harmful to the region.

This conflict culminated in the deadly Rainbow Warrior attack in 1985. The Rainbow Warrior, the flagship of the international environmental group Greenpeace, had taken to protesting nuclear tests by sailing as close to the sites as possible ahead of scheduled French explosions.

The French military had repeatedly clashed with the ship, detained its crew for short times and threatened to ram the craft for invading French waters.

		New Zealand Courts Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior after being sunk.

Finally in 1985, as the Rainbow Warrior sat berthed in New Zealand readying for another protest trip, French agents placed two explosive devices along the hull of the craft. Just after midnight, the bombs went off and the ship sank within minutes. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira drowned when the ship went down.

Although France initially denied any involvement in the attack, New Zealand authorities arrested two members of the French military who allegedly aided in the bombing. The two pleaded guilty to arson and a lesser charge of manslaughter, but the New Zealand authorities and the world blamed the government of France.

"People who come to this country and commit terrorist activities cannot expect to have a short holiday at the expense of our government and return home as heroes," Chief Justice Sir Ronald Davison told the French agents at their sentencing. But despite the threat, within two years, the two were released into French custody, but France's reputation had been badly tarnished in the row.

By the early 1990s, France was scaling back its nuclear effort. In 1992, President Francois Mitterrand agreed to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, making France the last confirmed nuclear power to agree to the pact. The accession to the treaty was seen as a major step for the fight against the spread of nuclear arms. Before it signed the treaty, French authorities had supplied Israel with the reactor and much of the equipment to start its suspected nuclear program. The French also supplied the reactor -- later bombed by the Israelis -- that most analysts believe was the planned core of the Iraqi nuclear program.

Mitterrand also implemented a series of weapons reductions, including scrapping the Hades missile -- a short-range battlefield weapon that was never deployed but which still deeply angered Germany and other European states that worried they would be caught in the crossfire of tactical nuclear weapons should a war between NATO and the Soviets break out.

Four years later it agreed to end its controversial nuclear tests and in 1996 conducted its final explosion in the Pacific and joined the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Although scaled back in recent years, analysts maintain the French nuclear program remains a major force aimed at ensuring the security of national interests and the military and diplomatic status of the French nation.

"France's nuclear program is ambitious. Paris prides itself in having a very strict definition of what an 'independent' nuclear program is," Bruno Tertrais wrote in the July/August 2004 edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist. "The existence of a two-way technical cooperation channel on nuclear safety and security with the United States is a matter of public record, but otherwise, unlike Britain, France has sought to build and maintain autonomously all the necessary components of its nuclear arsenal."

-- Compiled by Lee Banville for the Online NewsHour