This threat marks a worrisome change in France's nuclear doctrine. It asserts the value, even the necessity, of nuclear weapons as a means to ensure not merely French independence but also "strategic supplies" such as oil and "the defense of allied countries."

The innovations of this new Chirac doctrine come at a particularly bad time because they coincide with a looming crisis caused by Iran's apparent pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability in defiance of the International Atomic Energy Agency and negotiators from France, Britain, and Germany.

Chirac's explicit message to leaders of Iran's clerical regime - and to the rulers of North Korea and any other "regional power" partial to terrorism and avid for nuclear weapons - was a warning that they could face French nuclear retaliation if they dispatched suicide bombers or dispensers of anthrax to France.

Chirac's implicit message, however, is quite different. Instead of dissuading Iran or North Korea from pursuing nuclear weapons, the French president's valorizing of nuclear missiles as weapons that may be used to punish state sponsors of terrorism, ensure strategic oil supplies, and defend allies can only reinforce the arguments of nuclear hawks in Tehran and Pyongyang.

Policy makers in Iran and North Korea have now heard the leader of an established nuclear power saying that nuclear weapons enhance a medium-sized nation's security, and that such weapons may actually be used.

Chirac has made it harder than ever to hold the line on nuclear nonproliferation.