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Britain, France to quintuple size of joint expeditionary force — Starmer

The British prime minister confirmed that the two countries intend to deepen nuclear deterrence cooperation

LONDON, July 10. /TASS/. The United Kingdom and France will increase the size of their joint expeditionary force by five times - to 50,000 troops, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron as broadcast by Sky News.

"We are overhauling the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force to make it five times larger, 50,000 troops strong, able to act across every domain," Starmer said referring to the British-French rapid reaction force, created to conduct operations independent of NATO.

The British prime minister also confirmed that the two countries intend to deepen nuclear deterrence cooperation.

"But we’re going further. This morning, we signed the Northwood Declaration confirming for the first time that we are coordinating our independent nuclear deterrents. From today, our adversaries will know that any extreme threat to this continent would prompt a response from our two nations," he said.

He also said the nations will boost industrial partnership to further link their defense sectors.