France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark have forfeited any standing to question Iran's compliance with the NPT, or to raise its missile program ever again.
In March, at Île Longue, @EmmanuelMacron unveiled an "advanced deterrence" plan that the other eight have joined. Last week, he watched France test-fire its upgraded M51.3 ballistic missile from the submarine Le Vigilant. These steps breach the NPT on three counts.
The first is Article VI. It obliges every party, not France alone, to pursue negotiations in good faith on the "cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date" and on nuclear disarmament. In 1996, the International Court of Justice held unanimously that this is an obligation to bring those negotiations to a conclusion. France is moving in the opposite direction. Macron has ordered more warheads and stopped disclosing how many France holds. The M51.3, built to carry France's new TNO-2 warheads, brings greater range, accuracy and ability to penetrate missile defences. At the 2010 Review Conference, France accepted that non-nuclear states have a legitimate interest in constraining exactly this kind of "qualitative improvement" of nuclear weapons. Pursuing it anyway defies "pacta sunt servanda", the duty of good-faith performance in Article 26 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Articles I and II supply the other two counts. Article I forbids France to transfer nuclear weapons, or control over them, to anyone "directly, or indirectly." It also forbids France to assist a non-nuclear state "in any way" toward acquiring such control. Article II binds the seven non-nuclear participants not to receive such weapons or control. By hosting France's nuclear-capable aircraft and training for its nuclear operations, those states are drawn into the machinery of nuclear use. Macron's promise that the "final decision" stays in Paris is no answer, because the treaty also bars indirect control and assistance. Germany, which renounced "control over" nuclear weapons in the 1990 Two-Plus-Four Treaty, is doubly bound.
The treaty is a bargain of reciprocal obligations, and they are violating its core. Under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention, violating a provision essential to a treaty's object and purpose is a "material breach." In "Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros" (1997), the same Court held that a state's own unlawful conduct can prejudice its right to act on another party's breach.
Yet these capitals are prosecuting Iran under the very treaty they are breaching. Britain, France and Germany led the 2025 IAEA Board resolution finding Iran in non-compliance and triggered the "snapback" of UN sanctions. On 9 September, they joined the United States in having the Board refer Iran to the Security Council over reporting failures and the Agency's lack of access. That access ended with the June 2025 strikes on Iran's safeguarded facilities. No equivalent procedure exists to send France to the Council for enlarging its arsenal, and France and Britain hold vetoes there in any case. A violator of the NPT cannot sit in judgment of another party's compliance with it.
Then there is the hypocritical double standard on missiles. These governments condemn Iran's ballistic missiles, which carry conventional warheads. No treaty in force bars a state from building conventional missiles for its defence. Meanwhile, France has just test-fired a missile with an estimated range of 8,000 to 10,000 kilometres, designed to carry several nuclear warheads.
After the test, Macron repeated his maxim: "To be free, one must be feared." That is the oldest argument for proliferation. The NPT rests on the opposite premise: that more than 180 states can be secure without the bomb. When a nuclear power says that being feared is the price of freedom, it invites every one of those states to reconsider.
@Villepin
