WI: France Uses the Bomb?

After seeing the "WI: Britain uses the Bomb?" thread it got me to think about France and the possibility of it using the "Bomb". What could get France to use the Bomb? If it used the bomb how would the world react?
 

Cook

Banned
Maybe get it used in Algeria after a military coup there

What, against one of the coastal cities where most of the French colonists lived?

This scenario faces the same problem as the British Thread did except more so.
 
I was thinking more along the lines of using it in Indochina, but that involves a Pod having France win the First Indochina war and might lead to war with China.

This is the 'best' chance IMO. Have a junta-run France redouble its efforts in Indochina and Algeria. Combine this with growing left-wing discontent at home. NATO grows increasingly uneasy with the Paris regime.

Mao senses a chance to spread Communist (and Chinese) influence and pulls a Korea, sending 100,000s of 'volunteers' to overwhelm the French.

Soon numbers tell and force the French south. Fearful that Indochina's loss will trigger problems throughout the Empire and at home, the junta launches tactical nuclear weapons against the PLA and VM forces.

However for such a scenario, you will need a moment of chaos, confusion and insanity on the part of the junta. Because any sane observor will know, the moment a mushroom cloud raises over Tonkin, the world will see to it that the French government falls. Paris will be a living riot. The Empire is fucked as locals revolt and sections of the military mutiny. Outside, NATO, NAM and the Warsaw Pact will all by baying for blood.
 
If memory serves, France saw itself as- and tried to make itself the third player in the Cold War, so I think the idea of France trying to act like a big boy and using the ultimate weapon as a sign of it being one of the big boys is not off the table.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
One thing, France using the bomb in Colonial Wars is ASB for one reason, France planned to rule the colony after the war, which means they don't want a radioactive dump, but a profitable territory to exploit.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
There's Operation Vulture, where France asked for a nuclear bombing mission from the US to give it an assist in Dien Bien Phu and the Eisenhower Administration rightly said "You're fucking nuts"...
 
One thing, France using the bomb in Colonial Wars is ASB for one reason, France planned to rule the colony after the war, which means they don't want a radioactive dump, but a profitable territory to exploit.

Drawing on Operation Vulture, plus the ATL scenario of Chinese invasion, I don't think its ASB, utlimately we're talking about a government unwilling to back down, and a last resort to stop a regime destroying defeat.
 
That, and atomic usage would likely be tactical and limited if they were expecting victory (and appreciation of radiation took some time after the bomb to be fully there), meaning only select areas would see the bomb dropped. Or, worse come to worse, France could just desolate the rebellious nations with the bomb as a way of saying "If we can't have it, neither can you".
 
After seeing the "WI: Britain uses the Bomb?" thread it got me to think about France and the possibility of it using the "Bomb". What could get France to use the Bomb? If it used the bomb how would the world react?

Barring using a tactical nuclear weapon in Indochina (sounds like the French headquarters and McArthur were right on the same page here), for France to detonate nuclear weapons would require :

- a planned test (technically that counts as using the bomb)

- an offensive into Europe, to be used against enemy troop concentrations, key installations, or fleets (the tactical AN-52 gravitational bomb and the Pluton tactical missile were designed for this)

- an offensive into Europe that develops into threatening France's existence or truly vital interest (that's the other face of nuclear deterrence)

- a nuclear/chemical/biological strike against France/French troops (and then it would also depend on the circumstances).
 
I just have this image of President Eisenhower stroking a white cat and chuckling... as his victim gets slowly drowned in the Presidential Toothpaste death-device....
 
Hmmm. Probably ASB, but anyway we can get a conflict between France and Australia/New Zealand in the early 1990s over nuclear testing in the South Pacific? Probably wouldn't go nuclear (OK - no 'probably' about it - would not go nuclear unless Lovecraftian creatures infilitrated Chirac's brain), but maybe a Aussie/NZ blockade of the area with GreenPeace support?

Mike Turcotte
 
However for such a scenario, you will need a moment of chaos, confusion and insanity on the part of the junta. Because any sane observor will know, the moment a mushroom cloud raises over Tonkin, the world will see to it that the French government falls. Paris will be a living riot. The Empire is fucked as locals revolt and sections of the military mutiny. Outside, NATO, NAM and the Warsaw Pact will all by baying for blood.

The opinion of "the world" where nuclear states are involved is overrated.

And I thought Southern Vietnam was where the French were strongest. Wouldn't the mushroom clouds be further north?
 
Perhaps during that war in North Africa where the Libyans kept trying to conquer Chad and the French helped the Chadians repel them?

Maybe there's a Libyan breakthrough and some French units are cut off. They don't have enough firepower/logistics in-theater to break the Libyan forces by conventional means, so rather than fly in thousands of tons of conventional bombs, they fly in a couple of tactical nukes?

However, I imagine the French would at least give Gadhafi an ultimatum before using nuclear weapons--Gadhafi might have the common sense to back down rather than call France's bluff.
 
- a planned test (technically that counts as using the bomb)

They did that. Actually, between 1945 and 1998 they did something like 210 test detonations. I'm assuming, therefore, that the OP isn't counting that.

- an offensive into Europe, to be used against enemy troop concentrations, key installations, or fleets (the tactical AN-52 gravitational bomb and the Pluton tactical missile were designed for this)

- an offensive into Europe that develops into threatening France's existence or truly vital interest (that's the other face of nuclear deterrence)

- a nuclear/chemical/biological strike against France/French troops (and then it would also depend on the circumstances).

I think all three of these tie together into the most likely scenario. The French weren't part of the NATO unified commands, but they did have a couple of divisions stationed on W. German soil (OK, really close to the French border, but still...). If it looked like the Warsaw Pact was going to make it to or across the Rhine, I think the French would have played the Nuke card. Ditto if French units defending the FRG (which if it were invaded they almost certainly would do) found themselves under mushroom clouds.

BTW, awesome and mostly relevant video:

http://www.informationdissemination.net/2010/07/history-of-nuclear-testing.html
 
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