France May Withdraw from NATO

Nowadays, one idea doing the rounds in France is for the country to withdraw from NATO’s integrated military command structure, which it rejoined in 2009 after a 43-year absence.

In this regard, some French parties and maven politicians are currently pushing for a wholesale withdraw from Nato’s integrated command, as France did under Charles De Gaulle's regime, according to international reports.

This approach came out of the political impact of the secretive U.S.-British move to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, a decision that the Australians used to nix the prior French deal.

In the same connection, French President Emmanuel Macron has sparked concern that France could reconsider its NATO membership after his long silence on the Aukus deal announcement, which saw a deal between France and Australia go down.

For France, the submarine debacle demonstrates that the NATO alliance is debilitated to the point of dysfunction through lack of trust. On this basis, France sees that the alliance is nearly split on this issue and has become an "empty word".