Au revoir Trident? Bonjour le bomb Francais!

For the last two years French President Nicolas Sarkozy as been trying to persuade Britain to look again at the idea of combining nuclear deterrence with France.

It is a plan that would slash costs for both countries.

In 2008 Sarkozy told his people that there were no circumstances in which the ‘vital interests of either of our countries could be threatened without the vital interests of the other also being threatened’.

But as Gordon Brown tried to face down the Trident rebels in his own party he dismissed the French option as ‘politically undeliverable’.

Now, I learn from a senior French diplomat that when David Cameron had his first meeting as Prime Minister with Mr Sarkozy, the two men agreed to revive the idea and to look at ‘every aspect of nuclear deterrence’.

As Cameron battles to contain defence spending, the idea of sharing submarine patrols with the French – even the mutual control of what once was France’s independent nuclear weapons system, are included in the new Anglo-French review.

Last weekend I checked the story out with a senior Conservative member of the Coalition Cabinet. He confirmed it, adding that for both countries there was a new cost saving imperative.

In March of this year the now Defence Secretary Liam Fox stated that ‘Our most important bilateral relationship in Europe is with France ….a future Conservative Government will continue and strengthen this relationship’.

Defence specialists whom I have talked to suggest that the nuclear protection of both countries could be sustained with half the number of nuclear weapons submarines.

Thus a significant act of nuclear disarmament could be achieved without reducing the nuclear security of either country.

But I can find no one who has any detail on how all this would be done.

Could Trident be dumped in favour of a joint renewal and embrace of the French system?

It does seem to represent further evidence of Coalition new thinking. Intriguing, given the more Euro-sceptical stance that many commentators forecasted for any Cameron-led government.