This is prompting some European partners to accelerate negotiations with Paris – on nuclear deterrence, or the next long-term EU budget – in the hope of locking in agreements that a future president will find hard to unpick. For example, eight European partners, including the nuclear-armed UK and seven non-nuclear states, have begun talks to come under France’s “forward nuclear deterrence”. They will join French nuclear exercises and work together on space-based early warning systems, air and missile defence and long-range conventional missiles.