MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK, France sign historic defence-sharing agreement including nuclear arms

Cameron and Sarkozy, another fifty years of ‘entente cordiale’

After years of political division, Europe's two biggest military powers have come together to sign a historic defence-sharing agreement.

France and Britain have agreed to share aircraft carriers and submarines. They will train their troops together and assemble a 10,000-strong joint army. They have also decided to build a joint nuclear testing facility in a move which has stunned many analysts on both sides of the Channel.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and French president Nicolas Sarkozy met in London Tuesday to sign the historic agreement.

“The result will make our citizens safer, more secure and better protected in the global age of uncertainty in which we now live,” Mr Cameron said.

Mr Sarkozy says he is delighted by the deal. “Contrary to what might seem otherwise, France and Britain's clocks strike the same hour at the same time,” he said.

“Britain and France have a shared history through two World Wars. Our brave troops are fighting together every day in Afghanistan. But let me finish by saying this is a treaty based on pragmatism, not just sentiment”, said PM Cameron.

“I would like to thank Nicolas for joining me in taking these bold and important steps which I believe will make our sovereign nations safer” he added.

President Sarkozy said that “this is a decision which is unprecedented and shows a level of trust and confidence between our two nations which is unequalled in history.”

But their commitment to build a joint facility to test nuclear warheads has raised eyebrows. Francois Heisbourg, the Paris-based chairman of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, says there is a lot of trust involved in the pact.

”Agreeing to do that together implies a step change in the level of trust in the Anglo-French relationship of an order we have not seen since the end of World War II,“ he said.

Mr Cameron stressed the Anglo-French pact would not weaken British sovereignty and that the United Kingdom retains its ability to fight alone.

But he made the point that the UK had only fought alone twice in 30 years, in Sierra Leone and in the Falkland Islands.

Mr Sarkozy said he could not envisage a crisis so grave that France and Britain would not be willing to undertake joint military actions.

Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin, a former shadow defence secretary in Britain, is concerned about the new cross-channel collaboration.

He says the French have a track record of duplicity when it comes to dealing with its allies.

”If the Americans feel that we're beginning to share intelligence freely at a strategic level with the French, they will shut us off just as they have cut the French off from that intelligence relationship,“ he said.

”And the same goes for technology. We are far more dependent upon the United States for defence technology than we will ever be on the French.

“Let's be realistic about who our true friends are.”

Britain and France are the third and fourth-largest military powers in the world. Both leaders said it made sense for them to combine forces to avoid costly duplication.