Maturing Force

France's nuclear force de frappe is the pride of Charles de Gaulle's old age, and he dotes upon it as part of his ultimate legacy to France. Last week De Gaulle journeyed south to Provence to see for himself how his offspring is growing. He watched a mock alert by Mirage bombers that can carry A-bombs, donned a white coat to tour a nuclear testing center at Cadarache and toasted workers with champagne at the huge Pierrelatte plant where uranium is enriched for use in a planned French H-bomb. The force will never approach in destructive capability the weaponry of the big powers--some of its critics still refer to it as the force de farce --but De Gaulle has none the less given the French a nuclear sting capable of destroying major cities and millions of people. And unlike the Chinese, the French have the means to deliver that sting to targets.

The force now consists of 62 twin-engine Mirage IV bombers and a growing stockpile of conventional atom bombs of up to 150 kilotons each. The Mach 2.2 Mirage carries a single bomb, and from such bases as Istres in Southern France can be over Russian cities in a half-hour. France has also success fully tested a medium-range missile called sol-sol-balistique strategique, and plans to have 50 of them by 1970. In Haute-Provence, workers are building underground silos from which the missiles will be launched. This year France launched Le Redoubtable, the first of three submarines modeled after the U.S. Polaris-firing fleet and capable of carrying 16 missiles shot from underwater; before the end of the year, it hopes to test-fire one of the sea-to-land missiles to be stocked on these submarines. Next year, France plans to test its first H-bomb at its new range off Tahiti. If successful, this research will give France warheads of megatonic power.

Strutting on the Stage. The French government, not pleased by the aggressive sound of force de frappe, prefers to call its creation a force de dissuasion. The theory behind the force is that not even a nuclear power would want to destroy France at the possible cost of the retaliatory death of even a few million of its own people. This view is disputed by critics of the policy, of course, who say that few if any Mirages would make it through Russia's thick air defenses to their targets--and that the Russians know this. They point out, too, that the Mirages must stop to refuel in mid-air in order to make the trip, and are thus vulnerable to attack. As for France's planned missile arsenal, they claim that the anti-ballistic missile system Russia is working on will eventually be good enough to nullify the French rockets.

Actually, the force is more a political weapon than a strategic one. Whatever its limitations, it apparently gives De Gaulle the confidence he needs to strut on the world stage like the leader of a major power. It also obviates any reliance on the U.S., which he feels cannot be trusted to retaliate against the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons should the latter attack France. "We are worth more than that!" De Gaulle said a few years ago about what was, for him, a degrading dependence upon the U.S. The force furthers France's prestige, makes other countries more attentive to her voice in world councils, and, supposedly, enhances the pride of the French themselves. Said De Gaulle at Pierrelatte last week: "It is successes such as this that make it possible to judge the worth of a people."

Hurt Pride. The trouble is that the force is hurting French pride in many other ways. It has already cost $8 billion that France can ill afford, and it is still costing more than $2 billion a year. Its costs amount to about 10% of the national budget in a country whose housing is among the worst in Western Europe, whose ancient schools are a national scandal and whose roads are woefully inadequate. Most important, the country faces stiff economic competition abroad, especially from West Germany and the U.S., and could better channel its money into making more computers and the other equipment necessary to run a modern economy. "While we are preparing for a military war, which doubtless will never happen," says Jean-Jacques Servan-Shreiber, general director of the weekly magazine L'Express, "we are losing the industrial war." Nonetheless, the French Assembly, which has had many a battle over appropriations for the force, has given up fighting De Gaulle over it. Last week, while Papa de Gaulle viewed his growing baby, it passed a new force de frappe budget with hardly a murmur of dissent.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.