French Nuclear Weapons - Early Years
French nuclear research began well before the Second World War. In the period between the two wars, nuclear physics were already at a very advanced stage in France thanks to the work of Pierre and Marie Curie, Frederic Joliot-Curie and Irene Joliot-Curie. It was French scientists who discovered the phenomenon of natural radioactivity at the turn of the century, followed, in the mid-1930s, by the discovery of artificial radioactivity, and then went on to register secret patents just before the Second World War broke out.
As of May 1939, Joliot's team agreed to break with the policy of sharing research results universally practiced up till then, and began to implement a secrecy policy, even going so far as to register patents for their inventions. This new policy was decided partly due to concerns over intellectual property rights in view of future industrial applications and partly because of the strategic nature of the team's discoveries.
In the Autumn of 1939, the Minister of Armaments, Raoul Dautry, gave his full support to the studies carried out by Frédéric Joliot. The latter considered the priority to be the supply of strategic materials, i.e. uranium oxide for the fuel and heavy water, then thought of as the best neutron-moderator. By May 1938, a partnership had been set up with a Belgian company, the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga. This led to the delivery of 8 tonnes of uranium oxide from the Congo, a quantity which no other laboratory in the world possessed at the time.
In February 1940, on the orders of the President of the Council and Minister of National Defense, Edouard Daladier, a secret mission was sent to Norway to collect 185 liters of heavy water, the world's entire stock, made available to France by the Norsk-Hydro Company. On June 16, 1940, right before France surrendered, Raoul Dautry asked Hans Halban and Lew Kowarski to travel to London with the twenty-six drums of heavy water so that the work started in France could be pursued in Great Britain.
General de Gaulle had already been informed by various scientists of the progress made in American research in these matters and of its military implications. During a visit to Canada in July 1944, as Head of the Provisional Government of France, he learned of the state of progress on the Manhattan Project from the team of French nuclear physicists, more specifically from Jules Guéron.
The Second World War certainly put a brake on such pioneering research in France, but it did not come to a complete halt. Indeed, a small team of nuclear physicists belonging to the Free French Forces (France Libre) pursued these studies in secret, first in Great Britain and then in North America. In so doing, they also carried on the spirit of the French Resistance. After the war, France was the first nation in the world to set up a civil organization to lead research on civil and military applications of atomic power. The CEA (the French Atomic Energy Commission) came into being in October 1945.
The first real factor that paved the way for the future nuclear defense program was the launch of a five-year plan relative to nuclear energy. A first five-year plan for the development of atomic energy prepared by Felix Gaillard, a member of the Pinay government (March 1952 to January 1953) was mainly intended to find a remedy for the French energy deficit. The plan was to produce 50 kilos of plutonium a year which, in theory, would allow six to eight nuclear bombs to be produced.
By 1952, there was no specific policy regarding possible military applications, for the very simple reason that it was still too soon to start work on applications for national defense (a common R&D core was required first). However, it was apparent that the plan would enable France to produce significant quantities of fissile material in a relatively short space of time.
Before considering the possibilities of implementing a nuclear defense program, there was hostility on the domestic front to developing military applications of nuclear energy in France which needed to be dealt with. The main opposition to such development had its roots in the pacifist movement, voiced by the French Communist Party (PCF) in particular. It was, moreover, because of Frédéric Joliot's close ties with the PCF, and thus his aversion to the prospect of France acquiring nuclear weapons, that he was dismissed as High Commissioner in April 1950. He was replaced, a year later, by Francis Perrin.
Under the government headed by Pierre Mendès France, formed in June 1954, a series of decisions was taken which achieved a whole new step toward an operational plan. In October 1954, France set up the High Commission for the Military Applications of Atomic Energy to coordinate the future nuclear defense program. At a meeting held on December 26, 1954, the President of the Council of Ministers confirmed the direction he had already decided on, with the decision to launch the programs to manufacture nuclear weapons and nuclear submarines. No formal decision was actually taken under Mendès France, since his Cabinet collapsed in February 1955. Notwithstanding, it has to be said that the decision to set up the General Design Office (BEG), on December 29, 1954, very clearly confirmed Mendès France's commitment to a defense nuclear program. The BEG was tasked with designing and manufacturing a nuclear device.
This decision illustrates the extent to which the early days of what later evolved into the CEA's Military Applications Division (DAM) were shrouded in the utmost secrecy. It was also no coincidence that Colonel Albert Buchalet was appointed to head the new entity. The CEA's Chairman, Pierre Guillaumat, knew him from their time together in the French Resistance, working at the BCRA (the Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations) during the Second World War. The spirit of the Resistance was a sort of "badge of honor" for the clandestine launch of France's nuclear defense program.
The instability of the Fourth Republic in France after the war and the lack of financial means were to hold back French nuclear research which fell well behind that of the Americans. To some extent, American aid also prevented France from turning towards the military application of nuclear energy.
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