other nuclear power, Britain, relies on American technology for its submarine-launched nuclear missiles. Launch authority rests with Britain’s prime minister, but the missiles are assigned to NATO. Alliance planners can count on British missiles as a complement to America’s vast arsenal, like an extra rib to America’s nuclear umbrella. De Gaulle sniffed privately that Britain had sold its birthright and become a vassal to the Yanks. As for America’s offer to protect Europe from Soviet attack, he asked John F. Kennedy: why should the world believe that America would sacrifice New York for Paris? De Gaulle was no starry-eyed European. While paying lip-service to European unity, he wanted France firmly in charge, like a cockerel crowing on a dunghill, as one of his ministers put it. European interest in France’s nuclear forces marks a change. Since as far back as François Mitterrand in the 1980s, French presidents have invited neighbours to collaborate on nuclear deterrence, only to be spurned by allies fearing a scheme to undermine America. Yet nine or so countries, led by Germany, are now talking to France about joining its nuclear exercises and hosting temporary forward deployments of its nuclear weapons. This follows a speech by President Emmanuel Macron in March in the Gaullist setting of a French submarine base, offering to make all Europe safer with France’s nukes. French officials spent months ahead of Mr Macron’s speech sounding out allies. France was stung when he made a similar offer in 2020, briefed in advance to the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. But Berlin was silent. Mr Macron’s speech this year trod a path between two perils. To reassure NATO-sceptics on his country’s radical left and populist right, he emphasised that French nukes would remain under sovereign control. At the request of allies he included praise for NATO and for America’s role keeping Europe safe. His reward was a joint statement issued with Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz. That pledged close collaboration with France, while making clear that this “will add to, not substitute for, NATO’s nuclear deterrence”. In 2025 Mr Macron secured a joint statement with Britain declaring that “France and the United Kingdom agree that there is no extreme threat to Europe that would not prompt a response by our two nations”. Alas, the then-prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, did not sell the policy to his public.
If Europe is now keener on nuclear co-operation, two presidents, America’s Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, can take credit. A nightmare scenario haunts Europe: a crisis in which Russia uses nuclear weapons to blackmail a NATO member, and an unreliable America looks the other way. It says much about the bleakness of the age that Europeans are so interested in France’s nuclear umbrella. For nuclear wonks hotly debate whether France’s offer makes sense. France has enough weapons to defend its own territory. With 300-odd warheads, some launchable from stealthy submarines, it can credibly threaten massive retaliation against an enemy even after France has endured a surprise assault. French nuclear doctrine is designed to prevent war. If an adversary imperils France’s vital interests, war plans envisage a one-off nuclear warning shot being lobbed into enemy territory, to signal that the fight is about to turn nuclear. But should a nuclear war begin, powers the size of France (or Britain), know that there is a good chance they will not survive. Put another way, France is not America, a distant superpower protected by two oceans and nuclear-tipped missiles that could destroy an enemy’s nuclear forces, allowing it to plausibly intervene in a European nuclear war without facing its own destruction. In the cold war, America’s answer to de Gaulle’s question was: we would hope to save Paris, without sacrificing New York. It is harder for France to answer a variant on the question: why should anyone believe that a French president would lose Paris to save Berlin, Helsinki or Tallinn? In response, French strategists note Europe’s small scale and deep political ties, making a Russian attack on any close partner a life-and-death threat to Paris. That is not a bad answer, should Russia attack a close partner. But what about far-flung corners of the continent? Even if forward deployments of French nukes keep Russia guessing, France’s umbrella is too small to shield all of Europe. To date, France’s solution is to talk of “a European dimension” to its vital interests, and to refuse to say exactly whom it regards as close partners. Talk of France’s European interests generates one last problem. What happens if the presidency is won in 2027 by Marine Le Pen of the National Rally, a Europe-bashing right-wing party? Mr Macron’s nuclear speech in March was written to be “National Rally-proof”, sources say, and Ms Le Pen
welcomed its emphasis on sovereignty. Still, she is quite capable of insulting European allies, which would tend to undermine French protection of its neighbours. She has a history of pro-Russian sympathies, too, though she has muted those of late. French swagger comes in more than one variety, as Ms Le Pen shows. Europe will rely on it at its peril. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/international/2026/07/28/can-french-nukes-protect-europe- if-donald-trump-walks-away
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America has become an entrepreneur’s paradise Etsy-sellers and small-town accountants are enjoying the fruits of AI Jul 30th 2026 Several years ago, Zachary Dunn was selling cars in a small Georgia town when he realised that he “was sick of making other people rich”. Soon he quit and began hawking hats emblazoned with slogans online with a college roommate. (Recent hits include “DADDY” and “Put it on my husband’s tab”.) Their business, The Mad Hatter Company, is set to make eight figures in sales this year. Mr Dunn says he will never work for someone else again. He is not alone. Since the beginning of 2024 an average of 466,000 new- business applications have been filed each month in America, according to data from the Census Bureau. This June saw 531,000 applications, nearly double the average monthly figure in 2019 (see chart).
Americans have long loved the idea of being their own boss. (The term itself originates from colonial New Yorkers’ twisting of the Dutch word baas.) For at least two decades around 60% of them have said they would prefer to start their own business than to toil for someone else, according to Gallup, a pollster. Yet until recently fewer and fewer were living out that dream. As large firms lured workers with the promise of stability, the share of self- employed Americans fell from 36% in 1910 to less than 10% in 2020, noted a report from the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank. That is now changing. Full-time self-employment rose to its highest level this century in 2025, reaching 16.8m, according to the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a trade group. Business formation first surged during covid-19, as laid-off Americans turned to self-employment. In July 2020 new-business applications hit 547,000, the highest on record. Federal incentives helped: millions of people were able to take advantage of pandemic-era subsidies for small businesses. So too did an explosion in e- commerce and other ways to make money remotely. As the pandemic faded, existing businesses clamoured for workers and government incentives were wound down. Even so, the number of applications remained elevated, and since around the start of last year has been rising rapidly once again. Buzzy artificial-intelligence startups in
Silicon Valley backed by venture capital account for only a small part of the increase. The industries witnessing the biggest flurry of applications are professional services (up by 25% between 2021 and 2025), retail (18%) and health care and social assistance (18%). What is behind America’s latest entrepreneurship boom? The first explanation is the macroeconomic environment. In recent years American firms have hired and fired relatively few workers. The difficulty of getting a payrolled position may have encouraged jobseekers to start their own businesses, reckons John O’Trakoun, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. Young people in particular, who are facing a challenging market for entry-level jobs, may find entrepreneurship an attractive alternative. The share of Americans aged 15-34 who say it is a good time to find a job fell from 75% in 2022 to 43% last year, according to Gallup. The same may be true for workers who relocated during the pandemic and did not want to return to the office. A paper from 2024 by Ryan Decker, an economist for the Federal Reserve Board, and John Haltiwanger of the University of Maryland found a close correlation between the share of people in a location who were quitting their jobs and the number of new- business applications, with a particularly high rate of both in suburbs to which many city-dwelling office workers fled earlier this decade. Shifting consumption patterns offer a second explanation for the new- business boom. America’s ageing population has made catering to the elderly a roaring trade, with demand for everything from nursing homes to downsizing consultants. Small retailers are also finding it easier to make a living thanks to the uptick in e-commerce from the pandemic and algorithms that have become better at serving relevant products to hobbyists. More than half of sales supported by Shopify, a provider of e-commerce tools, now come from “niche” categories outside the 100 most common; entrepreneurs can mint money selling trading cards and custom pill cases, avoiding crowded categories. What is more, good ideas are easier than ever to find online, notes Justus Shaw, who started a mobile coffee cart in Tennessee last year. After seeing a coffee shop in Florida post a video of a machine for canning cold brew, he