NATO is quietly preparing for a scenario that would have seemed unthinkable a decade ago: France, one of the alliance’s founding members, pulling back from its integrated military command structure.
With French presidential elections set for 2027, both major opposition candidates have signalled they would fundamentally reshape Paris’s relationship with the Western defence alliance. Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally has called for withdrawing France from NATO’s integrated command, while Jean-Luc Melenchon of France Unbowed has gone further, declaring in June that there can be no question of remaining a NATO member.
The prospect has sent ripples of concern through alliance headquarters in Brussels. Internal NATO polling from this spring, reported by Politico, found that only 54 percent of French voters would vote to stay in NATO in a referendum, the second-lowest figure among all 32 member states, ahead of only Montenegro.
What France Contributes to NATO
The stakes of a French withdrawal from the command structure are enormous. France currently contributes approximately 10 percent of NATO’s annual 5.3 billion euro operational budget and provides capabilities that no other European ally can match. These include Europe’s only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, an amphibious fleet with Mistral-class vessels, the CERES intelligence satellites, and a navy capable of deploying roughly 65 percent of its fleet at any given time, a deployment rate that exceeds even the United States.
France also maintains a 1,200-strong battlegroup in Romania as part of NATO’s enhanced forward presence on the alliance’s eastern flank, one of its most significant post-Cold War deployments. French officers hold senior positions within the alliance, including the post of Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and the deputy commander role at NATO’s air military headquarters.
Leaving the command structure would cost France these positions and curtail its ability to influence military planning, according to French Lieutenant General Michel Yakovleff, former vice-chief of staff at NATO’s military headquarters. Under a withdrawal scenario, Paris would retain its seat on NATO’s political bodies, including a vote on triggering the mutual defence clause, but its voice in operational decisions would be severely diminished.
A Wider European Security Crisis
The timing could hardly be worse. The United States under President Donald Trump has already begun scaling back its military presence in Europe, pulling jets, destroyers and submarines from the continent. European allies are scrambling to build up their own defences amid warnings from several NATO intelligence agencies that Russia could launch an attack on the alliance within the decade.
With a lesser U.S. presence, the departure of France from command structures would leave Germany as Europe’s leading NATO member by default, a prospect that analysts say would fundamentally alter the alliance’s internal balance. Jamie Shea, a senior defence fellow at the Friends of Europe think tank and former NATO spokesperson, has argued that the shift toward Germany and Poland as the alliance’s primary European backers would simply accelerate what is already happening.
Finnish Defence Minister Antti Hakkanen told Politico that Finland hopes France will maintain its position, stressing that a strong NATO requires France to be fully integrated into its structures. The remarks reflect the anxiety of frontline states in eastern Europe, where the loss of French military commitment would be felt most acutely.
Historical Echoes and Potential Reversals
France has a long and complicated history with NATO. President Charles de Gaulle withdrew France from the alliance’s integrated military command in 1966, only for the country to return under President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009. The precedent offers some comfort to NATO planners, who note that candidates sometimes moderate their positions after taking office. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, for example, shifted from a eurosceptic stance to becoming one of the EU’s most pro-Ukraine leaders after winning power in 2022.
However, the current political climate in France is markedly different. Public scepticism toward NATO runs deep, fuelled by concerns about being dragged into conflicts perceived as serving American interests rather than European ones. The ongoing war in Ukraine and the broader Middle East instability have amplified these sentiments, with many French voters questioning whether the alliance’s collective defence obligations serve their country’s interests.
If a NATO-skeptic candidate wins the presidency, the withdrawal from the command structure could happen relatively quickly. The French president does not need parliamentary approval to make the decision, and the one-year withdrawal clause in the NATO treaty applies only to leaving the alliance’s political structures, not its military command. In practice, however, extracting around 1,000 officers permanently posted to NATO and establishing a liaison mechanism would take roughly a year.
As the 2027 election approaches, NATO diplomats are increasingly acknowledging that the worst-case scenario is no longer a theoretical exercise. One anonymous NATO diplomat told Politico that losing France would be dreadful, adding simply: if you go out, you lose everything. The question now is whether behind-the-scenes diplomacy can convince France’s political class of the costs before it is too late.
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