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France is known to have an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. France is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=CNS - Chemical and Biological Weapons Possession and Programs Past and Present ) 〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=France and the Chemical Weapons Convention )〕 France was the fourth country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon in 1960, under the government of Charles de Gaulle. The French military is currently thought to retain a weapons stockpile of around 300 operational nuclear warheads, making it the third-largest in the world, speaking in terms of warheads, not megatons.〔(Table of French Nuclear Forces ) (Natural Resources Defense Council, 2002)〕 The weapons are part of the national ''Force de frappe'', developed in the late 1950s and 1960s to give France the ability to distance itself from NATO while having a means of nuclear deterrence under sovereign control. France did not sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which gave it the option to conduct further nuclear tests until it signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1996 and 1998 respectively. France denies currently having chemical weapons, ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1995, and acceded to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1984. France had also ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1926. ==History== France was one of the nuclear pioneers, going back to the work of Marie Skłodowska Curie. Curie’s last assistant Bertrand Goldschmidt became the father of the French Bomb. French Professor Frederic Joliot-Curie, High Commissioner for Atomic Energy, was approached previous to President Roosevelt creating the Briggs Advisory Committee on Uranium in 1939 about the possibilities of creating an atomic bomb; Joliot-Curie told the ''New York Herald Tribune'' that the "Report on atomic Energy for Military Purposes" in 1945 wrongfully omitted the contributions of French scientists.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, EUROPEAN EDITION, 'JOLIOT-CURIE RIPS AMERICA FOR ATOMIC ENERGY REPORT' )〕 After WW-II France's former position of leadership suffered greatly because of the instability of the Fourth Republic, and the lack of finance available.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): Nuclear Weapons )〕 During the Second World War Goldschmidt invented the now-standard method for extracting plutonium while working as part of the British/Canadian team participating in the Manhattan Project. But after the Liberation in 1945, France had to start its own program almost from scratch. Nevertheless, the first French reactor went critical in 1948 and small amounts of plutonium were extracted in 1949. There was no formal commitment to a nuclear weapons program at that time, although plans were made to build reactors for the large scale production of plutonium.〔''(Origin of the Force de Frappe )'' (Nuclear Weapon Archive)〕 However, in the 1950s a civilian nuclear research program was started, a byproduct of which would be plutonium. In 1956 a secret Committee for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy was formed and a development program for delivery vehicles was started. The intervention of the United States in the Suez Crisis that year is credited with convincing France that it needed to accelerate its own nuclear weapons program to remain a global power.〔''Stuck in the Canal'', Fromkin, David - Editorial in ''The New York Times'', 28 October 2006〕 In 1957, soon after Suez and the resulting diplomatic tension with both the USSR and the United States, French president René Coty decided on the creation of the C.S.E.M. in the then French Sahara, a new nuclear tests facility replacing the C.I.E.E.S.〔()〕 With the return of Charles de Gaulle to the presidency of France in the midst of the May 1958 crisis, the final decisions to build an atomic bomb were taken, and a successful test took place in 1960. Since then France has developed and maintained its own nuclear deterrent, one intended to defend France even if the United States refused to risk its own cities by assisting Western Europe in a nuclear war. In 1986 Francis Perrin, French high-commissioner for atomic energy from 1951 to 1970, stated that in 1949 Israeli scientists were first invited to the Saclay Nuclear Research Centre, this cooperation leading to a joint effort including sharing of knowledge between French and Israeli scientists especially those with knowledge from the Manhattan Project.〔https://fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr.htm〕〔http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/nuke.html〕〔http://www.wrmea.org/wrmea-archives/95-washington-report-archives-1982-1987/december-1986/694-israels-nuclear-arsenal.html〕 In 1956 as part their military alliance during the Suez Crisis the French agreed to secretly build the Dimona nuclear reactor in Israel and soon after agreed to construct a reprocessing plant for the extraction of plutonium at the site. By 1960, two years into the administration of Charles de Gaulle, cooperation cooled following a successful test with the French asking that Israel cease its weapons program and submit to international inspections lest a proliferation scandal affect French foreign relations.〔https://fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/〕 According to Lieutenant Colonel Warner D. Farr in a report to the USAF Counterproliferation Center while France was previously a leader in nuclear research "Israel and France were at a similar level of expertise after the war, and Israeli scientists could make significant contributions to the French effort. Progress in nuclear science and technology in France and Israel remained closely linked throughout the early fifties. Israeli scientists probably helped construct the G-1 plutonium production reactor and UP-1 reprocessing plant at Marcoule."〔http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/farr.htm〕 In 1957 Euratom was created, and under cover of the peaceful use of nuclear power the French signed deals with Germany and Italy to work together on nuclear weapons development.〔''Die Erinnerungen'', Franz Josef Strauss - Berlin 1989, p. 314〕 The West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer told his cabinet that he "wanted to achieve, through EURATOM, as quickly as possible, the chance of producing our own nuclear weapons".〔(Germany, the NPT, and the European Option ) (WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor)〕 The idea was short-lived. In 1958 de Gaulle became President and Germany and Italy were excluded. France developed its nuclear and thermonuclear bombs without outside assistance. The United States, however, began providing technical assistance in the early 1970s through the 1980s. The aid was secret, unlike the relationship with the British nuclear program. The Nixon administration, unlike previous presidencies, did not oppose its allies' possession of atomic weapons and believed that the Soviets would find having multiple nuclear-armed Western opponents more difficult. Because the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 prohibited sharing information on nuclear weapon design, a method known as "negative guidance" or "Twenty Questions" was used; French scientists described to their American counterparts their research, and were told whether they were correct. Areas in which the French received help included MIRV, radiation hardening, missile design, intelligence on Soviet anti-missile defences, and advanced computer technology. Because the French program attracted "the best brains" of the nation, the Americans benefited from French research as well. The relationship also improved the two nations' military ties; despite its departure from NATO's command structure in 1966, France developed two separate nuclear targeting plans, one "national" for the Force de Frappe's role as a solely French deterrent, and one coordinated with NATO. France is understood to have tested neutron or enhanced radiation bombs in the past, apparently leading the field with an early test of the technology in 1967〔(BBC News: Neutron bomb: Why 'clean' is deadly )〕 and an "actual" neutron bomb in 1980.〔UK parliamentary question on whether condemnation was considered by Thatcher government ()〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「France and weapons of mass destruction」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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