NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte dismissed European dreams of security independence from America in a blunt address to the European Parliament, telling lawmakers to "keep on dreaming" - and France is not amused.
The extraordinary public clash between NATO's civilian chief and the EU's most vocal defense hawk exposes the deepest fissure in the transatlantic alliance since Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO's integrated military command in 1966.
Rutte told MEPs that European nations would need to allocate 10% of GDP to defense - double the current 5% target - to compensate for reduced American support. Developing independent nuclear capabilities, he warned, would cost "billions and billions of euros" and abandoning the US nuclear umbrella would undermine continental security.
Brussels decides more than you think - but France believes Brussels can decide alone.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot mounted the strongest counter-attack, telling reporters that Europeans "can and must take charge" of their own security. His deputy Benjamin Haddad noted that Europe, not America, provides the largest financial support to Ukraine - approximately €100 billion versus Washington's €75 billion since 2022.
"Europeans are not weak," Haddad declared, pointing to the continent's combined defense spending of €280 billion annually. "We possess the necessary tools for independent defense."
French MEP Nathalie Loiseau, a former Europe minister, called Rutte's intervention "disgraceful," accusing him of attempting to appease Trump rather than advocating for balanced transatlantic burden-sharing. Former European Council President Charles Michel was more direct: "Trump is not my daddy."
The institutional clash reveals competing visions. France has pursued autonomie stratégique (strategic autonomy) since President Emmanuel Macron declared NATO "brain dead" in 2019. Paris envisions a militarily capable Europe that cooperates with Washington as an equal partner, not a dependent client.
Rutte, by contrast, reflects the dominant view in Berlin, Warsaw, and the Baltics: that European security fundamentally depends on American nuclear and conventional deterrence against Russia. For these nations, French talk of independence sounds like dangerous delusion.
The timing matters. With Trump's administration openly questioning NATO commitments and European capitals scrambling to reach 2% defense spending targets they've ignored for decades, Rutte's message that Europe cannot defend itself serves as uncomfortable truth-telling for some, defeatism for others.
France possesses Europe's only credible independent nuclear deterrent and its most capable power projection forces. But even Paris acknowledges that building a fully autonomous European defense would require German rearmament, something Berlin has spent 80 years avoiding.
Brussels decides more than you think - but on defense, Brussels still can't decide whether it wants to grow up or stay under America's protection. France has chosen. The rest of Europe is still dreaming.
