Bordeaux is unlikely to still be around major port at the Atlantic Ocean,capital of the Aquitaine region and prefecture of the Gironde Department plus it was once used briefly as provisional capital of France when Paris was abandoned in 1940.The soviets would take such factors into account and its safer to nuke it.2-3 warheads in the 500 kt range are enough to get rid of the city.The cities most likely to still be around are the ones away from military bases,no major port or airports around,no industry of significance no regional administrative center.Bordeaux is a major port,administrative center,somewhat important airport,and to make matters worse the civil airport was once used by the USAF meaning in the event of war it would have facilities to be turned over at least in theory to the army.If Bordeaux was only an administrative center maybe it could survive the warhead destined for it malfunctioning but with all of the above not likely multiple strikes on multiple targets.Too bad since it means the wine capital of the world is gone.
We have already talked about this, but the Soviets can't nuke every single city in Western Europe when other targets in Asia and America have to be hit as well. You would really need a good reason to nuke a city several times in order to make sure that it gets destroyed. This is valid for Paris due to its importance, it is valid for Marseilles and probably Toulon. But if Bordeaux, Nantes and cities alongside the Atlantic Coast are targeted, I doubt that it will be by multiple warheads. I might be very wrong since we don't have reliable data on this.
Brest is a goner on the Atlantic Coast because of the naval base. Nantes/St Nazaire is a potential target due to the harbour (four times larger than Bordeaux) and the industrial facilities there chiefly the refineries. La Rochelle could be a target, but that is a big stretch in my opinion since Poitiers is an equally valid one in the region. Toulouse is almost definitely gone because of the aeronautical factories.
Almost all of France warmaking potential and military bases are in Eastern France, which is the area I expect to be the heaviest hit by conventional and nuclear strikes. The bulk of the Army and Air Force bases are there, the majority of France steelmaking capabilities are there, a significant number of car factories are there and "clearing" the area with nuclear weapons makes perfect tactical sense.
Western France will certainly be hit in places, but I would expect to have large areas including entire departements as well as their neighbours to get away scot free. This won't make France an automatic superpower, especially since some regions like the Limoges area have always been more backwards than the rest. But it will make things easier in the first few months and years after the strike, as a lot of western France is primarily agricultural in nature and any restrictions by either the CAP or the Ministry of Agriculture won't apply anymore. Changing gears will be hard in some cases, since Brittany for example is primarily a region of intensive livestock farming and not of wheat farming. But there will be more than enough land left to feed over twenty million survivors.
Electricity won't be an issue, since I expect at least five to eight nuclear reactors to remain operational along the Loire Valley and neighbouring regions. Petroleum will be very hard to come buy, but there is some amount of domestic production taking place in Aquitaine and a few small refineries which I would expect to survive. With no cars on the roads, the demand will be a lot lower than it once was, helping things considerably.
