Mr President-Candidate Macron, Mrs Candidate Le Pen,

As you have certainly norticed, although it’s a subject that you have both carefully avoided, nuclear deterrence is irremediably bankrupt. At least our deterrence, that of France and the West. It has not prevented Vladimir Putin from starting the war that is now ravaging Ukraine at the door of Europe. Nothing scares him. And he, possessing some 6000 atom bombs, does not hesitate to threaten whoever "stands in the way of Russia". Any state that might wish to aid the Ukrainians - France for example - would be smashed and its population annihilated.

Monsieur le Président Macron, you command atom bombs as Putin does. No more than 300, admittedly, but that "strict sufficiency" would still enable you to kill a billion people - enough to make dear Vlad respect you and listen to you. Before and after his aggression, you have had long phone calls with him, and yet (unless there is proof to the contrary) you have gained nothing from him. So now it is clear: deterrence may be terrifying, but it deters only those willing to be deterred. It is useless against Doctor Strangelove. As a result, several questions must be asked:

1°) What use was your nuclear deterrence to you, if it failed to deter big Vlad from a warlike invasion?

2°) Your "nuclear posture" serves in the end only to deter you from giving military aid to the invaded country. Is not that the posture of the "deterrer deterred", or "hoist on one’s own petard".

3°) Even worse, what use will your bombs be if, by misfortune, big Vlad notes that we are furtively sending a few weapons to Ukraine, and considers us to be co-belligerents... and then decides to nuke us? Will you resuscitate the French deads by massacring a crowd of Russians in your turn? That would only add crime to crime and incite big Vlad to liquidate us totally. Nuclear weapons cannot deter or even avenge. The only outcome is suicide.

4°) Is it to reach that brilliant result that we - we the taxpayers - have wasted between 300 and 400 billion euros to build these harmful devices, these weapons that are frightening, criminal, suicidal, murderous and stupid? And continue to devote billions of euros to them every year?

Ask yourself these questions honestly, Monsieur Macron, and answer them. And you too, Madame Le Pen, since you call yourself a "Stateswoman" and are ready to assume supreme power in a nuclear State, i.e. the power to commit and to cause the massacres of millions of people, to commit a crime against humanity and to provoke Doomsday.

Which of you will have the courage and the simple commonsense to reply Yes to the following question:

"Are you in favour of France taking part in the abolition of nuclear weapons and committing with all the states concerned to negotiations aimed at drawing up, ratifying and implementing a treaty to ban and completely eliminate nuclear and radioactive weapons, under mutual and international control that is strict and effective."

You would satisfy the expectations of 85% of French voters (IFOP poll 2018). That would help you win a handsome majority and unite French citizens around their survival in a peaceable world, without wars, without nuclear arms, ready to cooperate in response to all our great challenges, notably that of climate. . The one of you that makes that commitment would win our vote, because life and survival count more than anything else.

If not, large numbers will boycott this indecent, absurd and criminal competition, to give the message that it flouts the fundamental values of our precious French Republic: liberty, equality and fraternity - three indissociable preconditions for lasting peace in a livable world.

Jean-Marie Matagne, President of ACDN (Action des Citoyens pour le
Désarmement Nucléaire)