The Baltic Sea Region (BSR) was historically a low priority in French foreign policy until the Russian annexation of Crimea and invasion of Donbas in 2014. This event marked a strategic shift, prompting France to actively participate in NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence and air policing missions in the BSR. Balancing between Atlanticist commitments and a push for European Strategic Autonomy (ESA), France’s nuanced strategy reflects its dual approach to regional security. Despite its critical stance on NATO, France remains a key player in both NATO and European defense initiatives, highlighting the complex interplay between Europeanism and Atlanticism in its security policy.
For a long time, the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) was sidelined, though not entirely neglected, in French foreign policy and security thinking. This lack of interest was not a mere policy oversight but rather a reflection of a broader sentiment within French society, making Philippe Meyer conclude that ‘France is hardly interested anymore in the daily life of the countries bordering the Baltic Sea. It is no longer directly concerned with their political life, which merges with that of the European Union. France thus often forgets the major political role it has played in the history of the Baltic Sea.’
The Russian annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbas in 2014 marked a turning point in this respect, increasing the geopolitical magnitude of the BSR in NATO’s Eastern Flank security considerations, as well as the French view on the overall military-strategic importance of the region. The 2016 Warsaw Summit saw the establishment of the Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) in the Baltic States and Poland, with France not only taking part in the ground troops deployment in Estonia within the EFP framework but additionally participating in the Alliance’s air policing mission in the region. In turn, the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine finalized the transformation of the BSR into the geo-strategic fulcrum of the Eastern Flank’s military security. In this context, France, seeing itself as the European linchpin of the Alliance, has played a pivotal role in ensuring the necessary reinforcement of the Eastern Flank. This underscores the significance of its Atlanticist inclinations, which were first pronounced with France’s rejoining NATO’s Integrated Command (IC) during Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency in 2007, after General de Gaulle’s forty-year-old departure in 1966. However, despite this increased engagement with the Atlantic Alliance, France remains simultaneously critical of the latter and tends to generally favor the European Strategic Autonomy (ESA) approach. This paradox, exemplified by Emmanuel Macron’s 2019 diagnosis of NATO as being in a state of ‘brain death’ (en État de mort cérébrale), reflects the complex nature of France’s stance on the European security policy. The French president, in office since 2017, has consistently pursued a Europeanist line in security policy, which might be considered a form of neo-Gaullism aiming for the emergence of a strategically autonomous Europe that no longer relies on the United States for its defense.
This simultaneous presence of and opposition between Europeanism and Atlanticism have characterized much of French foreign policy, let alone military-strategic action, since the beginning of the Cold War and the foundation of NATO in 1949. The same applies to the current French military presence in the BSR; in fact, France follows a two-tier path of action in the region, combining the Alliance participatory framework with the intra-European military security cooperation. This makes the BSR a peculiar case regarding the French ability to tame their repulsive dynamics and maintain an effective balance between the two, making one capable of a cautious assumption regarding at least a partial and region-specific qualitative change in French security thinking.
As mentioned, France is actively engaged in NATO activities in the BSR, predominantly within the operational framework of Mission Lynx. Through this mission, France consistently deploys 350 troops, primarily infantry regiments specialized in cold-weather combat, and approximately 100 vehicles, including 30 heavy armored units. This presence was made permanent in 2022 following Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, while before this, French troops rotated every six months with Danish allies. Additionally, under the Enhanced Air Policing initiative, France deploys four Mirage-2000-5 fighter jets and over 100 technical personnel in Lithuania. The French Naval Aviation Group (GAN: Groupe Aéronaval) is also regularly deployed in the Baltic Sea on at least a monthly basis. Thus, all three branches of the French military (Army, Air Force, and Navy) are involved in NATO deployments in the BSR. This military presence, in turn, is complemented by the French active involvement in NATO’s regional military exercises. Among the recent ones, along with the other 31 member states, it participated in the Steadfast Defender exercise this year. Of the four upcoming exercises, France will take part in three: Joint Warrior and Nordic Response, focused on the North Sea, Norway, and the Baltic Sea, as well as Dragon 24 in Poland. Every two years, France participates in the Cold Response exercises in Norway and generally in most of NATO’s regional exercises.
In parallel, despite France’s heavy involvement in NATO regional operations and exercises, it simultaneously follows the European Agenda, guided by Florence Parly’s motto of ‘Your security is our security,’ pronounced in Helsinki in 2018. After rejecting the creation of the European Defence Community (EDC) in 1953, France’s current promotion of ESA might seem surprising. However, one should not omit the historical context of this rejection, namely, the UK’s perceived role as an American proxy and France’s then-extensive imperial possessions, which no longer exist today. Since 2017, Emmanuel Macron has championed this strategic autonomy, mainly by pushing the European Defense agenda forward; several institutional-constitutive steps have been taken at the European level: establishing a European Defence Fund, the Intervention Initiative, and adopting the Strategic Compass in 2022. With this backdrop of the French proactive engagement with the issue, the Baltic states and Poland, despite being traditionally Atlanticist, have shown a growing openness to ESA: there has been a noticeable increase in positive attitudes towards the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) among these countries. While NATO remains their primary security guarantee, they consistently participate in various initiatives under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and have even taken on proactive roles since 2022. Notably, Estonia, led by Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, has advocated for building ‘a combat-effective Europe.’ Scandinavian countries and Finland, conventionally more reserved on this issue — due to the neutrality tradition (Finland, Sweden) and a tendency to avoid European Defense initiatives (Denmark) or EU membership altogether (Norway) – have also engaged more deeply.
In this respect, although NATO has strengthened its eastern flank, the apprehension caused by Donald Trump’s potential return to the US presidency in 2022 has aligned European countries more closely with the French aspirations, especially those in the BSR. For instance, Denmark quickly joined the CSDP following a 2022 referendum. Estonia, one of France’s main allies in the region via the framework of the Mission Lynx, frequently supports French defense cooperation initiatives at the European level. Similarly, Lithuania and Latvia, though their ties with France are less developed than Estonia’s, often back French initiatives: the three Baltic states notably supported Macron’s statement concerning the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine. Poland, following its European shift with the election of Donald Tusk, now advocates for a ‘powerful Europe.’ Sweden and Finland, despite joining NATO, continue to support the idea of European strategic autonomy. Finland, for example, remains a significant participant in the CSDP, involved in 11 out of 15 missions, and Sweden has overseen the Atalanta operation headquarters. Lastly, Norway, the only regional NATO member not in the EU, signed a security and defense partnership with the EU on May 28, 2024.
Overall, one might say that France’s policy concerning the BSR is an example of a comprehensive adaptation to the demands of its regional partners and the changes in the broader geopolitical climate. While the BSR’s countries are highly committed to the NATO security framework, conceiving it as the cornerstone of their security policy, France does not challenge these attitudes. Instead, it chooses active participation in various Alliance’s regional missions to maintain its status as a reliable and credible ally. In the meantime, however, France has also not abandoned the promotion of its European agenda; with a possibility of American attention shifting away from Europe, France seems to cautiously bet on the latter as an opportunity to promote further and strengthen the EU’s role in military security matters.
