President Emmanuel Macron said he’ll enter into talks to use France’s nuclear capabilities to defend European allies, in the latest push by a European country to establish strategic security as the US reduces its footprint on the continent.

“Our nuclear deterrent protects us,” Macron said in a televised address Wednesday. “I have decided to open the strategic debate on the protection, through our deterrent, of our allies on the European continent.”

The French president’s remarks came ahead of an emergency meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday for talks on Ukraine and the continent’s wider security. Macron said his decision follows a request from the German chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz.