Third place in the world: what do we know about French nuclear weapons?

Nuclear submarines are Triomphant class submarines. There are three sets of weapons for four submarines. Each of them consists of 16 ballistic missiles. In turn, each missile has a multiple warhead with 16 warheads. At the same time, a nuclear submarine is considered to be undergoing re-equipment or scheduled repairs.The air component of the French nuclear potential is based on the ASMPA medium-range cruise missiles with TNA nuclear warhead. Their carriers are mainly multi-purpose Rafale aircraft.France bet on the independence of its own nuclear forces in the mid-1950s. The developer of the French nuclear bomb was Bertrand Goldschmidt, who had previously worked with the famous Marie Curie and participated in the American Manhattan atomic project.France carried out its first nuclear test on February 13, 1960 in Algiers. After the independence of Algeria, Paris had to move the tests to French Polynesia. For this purpose, the atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa were chosen in 1963. Moreover, until 1975, only aerial explosions were carried out on this site. Then they were transferred underground, and since 1981 – in the central zone of the Mururoa atoll under the bottom of the lagoon.A total of 210 tests were carried out between 1960 and 1996. The last explosion was on January 27, 1996.Since then, France has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), facilitated the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and signed three protocols to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. .As for the modernization of the country’s nuclear potential, it was planned to spend 37 billion euros for these purposes over the period 2018-2025. We are talking in particular about new 3rd generation nuclear submarines, as well as the development and production of hypersonic missile systems for aviation V-MaX capable of carrying nuclear payloads.