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French Strategy: Independence

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NATO, Britain, France and the FRG

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Abstract

Like many other countries, France had had her own nuclear programme before World War II. Together with scientists from the United States, Britain and Canada, French physicists contributed to the Manhattan project.1 After the war, France reconstituted a nuclear research programme, barred like Britain from technology-sharing with the US through the McMahon Act of 1946.2 From 1950, the French military undertook some preliminary studies of the effect of nuclear weapons on the conduct of war.3 In 1952 the Government of Antoine Pinay, with the approval of the National Assembly, ordered the constitution of two weapons-grade piles of plutonium.4 This later gave France the option of developing military applications.5 Yet until 1954, the French nuclear programme was still general enough to be directed towards both civilian and military applications.

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Notes

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of War Studies, King’s College, London, UK

    Beatrice Heuser (Senior Lecturer)

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  1. Beatrice Heuser
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© 1997 Beatrice Heuser

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Heuser, B. (1997). French Strategy: Independence. In: NATO, Britain, France and the FRG. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377622_4

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