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Europe’s ‘nuclear umbrella’ risks catastrophic escalation
As Macron and Merz propose French nuclear-armed jets be stationed in Poland and Germany, the dangerous implications for peace and the possibility of nuclear confrontation grow, warns SOPHIE BOLT

AS Trump brutally hammers out a settlement for Ukraine and Russia, he’s also been hammering Europe for vast, cold-war levels of military spending. And European leaders seem very keen to oblige.

Along with Keir Starmer’s so-called peace plan for a 30,000-strong European army, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz are pushing for a European “nuclear umbrella” — where France could deploy its nuclear-capable jets outside its borders. Merz also wants Britain to step up and deploy its British nuclear submarines to “defend” Europe against Russian aggression.

So what does this “nuclear umbrella” really mean in practice — and what are the risks?

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