The Force de dissuasion, known as the Force de frappe before 1961, is the French nuclear deterrence force. Formulated immediately after the Second World War, it comprised a triad of air-, sea- and lan
A Rafale of the Strategic Air Forces Command with an ASMP-A missile
A decommissioned nuclear missile silo on the Plateau d'Albion
A Pluton missile mobile launcher
The Redoutable, the first French nuclear missile submarine.
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces against Nazi Germany and Vichy France in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of t
Force de dissuasion
…status as a great power, maintain an independent security posture, and command greater influence within the NATO alliance. As early as 1945, General Charles de Gaulle envisioned France as a nuclear power; Prime Minister Pierre Mendès France laid the groundwork for this effort in 1954. De Gaulle's presidency (1959–1969…
De Gaulle in uniform, 1942
Charles de Gaulle, sometime in the 1900s
De Gaulle as a cadet in Saint-Cyr, 1910
A plaque in Dinant commemorating the place where Charles de Gaulle, then an infantry lieutenant, was wounded in 1914