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The French may adore Hollywood cinema, country music and the allure of the American Dream, and celebrate ties that date back to America's war of independence, but they have kept some distance too - shunning what's known here as "Le Woke-isme" and, today more than ever, celebrating President De Gaulle's determination to build an entirely French-owned nuclear deterrent separate from both Nato and the US.

The two governments recently agreed to transform Camp de Gaulle, the longstanding French base in Gabon, into a new training centre that they will operate jointly.

So in the end Charles de Gaulle was right.

From his principle of superpower detachment, de Gaulle conjured the notion of France's sovereign nuclear deterrent – whose existence is now at the centre of debates over European security.

In fact French presidents going back to de Gaulle himself have all hinted that some European countries might de facto already be under the umbrella.