FRANCE yesterday spelled out its intention to start rebuilding its military ties with Nato after a break of 30 years - including discussing nuclear weapons.
France's ambassador to Nato told his counterparts the offer was intended to give fresh impetus to the internal reforms already under way in the organisation.
He also held out the prospect of further reintegration into Nato's military structure if the alliance developed a European defence and security identity, alliance sources said. A source within Nato said that the French move was welcome.
France's Defence Minister will now take part in formal meeting's with the defence ministers of the 15 other Nato nations. The country will also take up its seat once more in the alliance's military committee, the Nato situation centre, the defence college in Rome, the defence school in Oberammergau and it will re establish a permanent military mission to Nato.
But it will not rejoin NATO's Defence Planning Committee (DPC) or the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG).
France is nearing the end of a series of much criticised nuclear tests in the South Pacific - tests that would probably have been discussed with the alliance if Paris had declared its change of heart about Nato six months ago.
The offer, fleshing out the policy reversal announced by the Foreign Minister, Mr Herve de Charette, last month, brings France almost all the way in from the cold but leaves an empty seat on the two key Nato committees of defence and nuclear planning.
It also breaks the taboo of not discussing the country's nuclear arsenal in a move, alliance diplomats said, that would have been impossible under the late president Mitterrand.
However, alliance sources pointed out that issues that would normally be raised in the DPC could be discussed in the North Atlantic Council, and the NPG had been moribund for years.