PRESIDENT CHIRAC gave an unprecedented warning yesterday that France was prepared to use its nuclear weapons against “rogue” states that mounted terrorist attacks on French soil.

Speaking at l’Île-Longue, a submarine base near Brest, in Brittany, M Chirac redefined the scope of the French deterrent, though he avoided singling out any country.

The French nuclear strike force is “not aimed at dissuading fanatic terrorists”, M Chirac said, meaning that organisations such as al-Qaeda would not be a target. But “leaders of states that would use terrorist means against us, just like anyone who would envisage using, in one way or another, arms of mass destruction, must understand that they would expose themselves to a firm and fitting response from us”, he said.

“This response could be conventional. It could also be of another nature,” M Chirac said, adding that there should be no doubt “about our will and our capacity to use nuclear arms” if French vital interests were to be threatened.

“In numerous countries, radical ideas are spreading, advocating a confrontation of civilisations,” M Chirac said. “Odious attacks” could escalate to “other yet more serious forms involving states”, he added.

Officials close to the President said that he was not pointing a finger at any one country, including Iran, which is in a stand-off with the West over its nuclear programme.

Bruno Tertrais, of the Foundation for Strategic Research, said: “This is a message to any kind of regional power that might believe it could bypass French nuclear deterrence by using terrorist means.”

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