France and Poland to Sign New Defense Treaty on May 9, Says Macron

The treaty will be signed in Nancy, northeastern France, Macron added.

The agreement, which has been under preparation for months, will replace the existing treaty signed between the two countries in the early 1990s, following the end of Communist rule in Poland.

Last month, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the treaty, which he described as “a turning point in terms of mutual safety guarantees” was in its final stages, but did not reveal details of the agreement.

Speaking to Polish state news agency PAP at the time, the French ambassador to Warsaw, Étienne de Poncins, said the new treaty was set to significantly deepen ties between the two EU members.“We must now elevate Franco-Polish relations to the same level as those we maintain with our key EU partners: Italy, Spain, and Germany,” Poncins said.

Poland will be the first non-bordering country with which France signs such a high-level agreement, or, as Poncins put it, a “premium treaty.”Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and doubts over U.S. President Donald Trump’s commitment to defending America’s NATO allies in case of conflict, have prompted European states to bolster their own defense capabilities while also exploring mutual security arrangements.

Polish President Andrzej Duda has said that Warsaw should aim for protection under a French nuclear shield, after Macron said in March that he would be open to extending Paris’s nuclear umbrella to its European allies.

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Rheinmetall CEO Fears Collapse of Franco-German Tank Project

Armin Papperger, CEO of German defense titan Rheinmetall, has raised serious concerns that France could withdraw from or cripplingly defund the Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) – a joint program aimed at developing a next-generation battle tank to replace the Leopard 2 and Leclerc by 2040. These warnings follow the total collapse of the Franco-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS) fighter jet project, which was officially scrapped due to corporate infighting.

France has around 300 nuclear warheads, making it one of only three NATO countries—alongside the U.S. and U.K.—to have such a deterrent.It is also the only European Union member state to be nuclear-armed.