France Chooses MAD

France is the first nation to publically adopt the option of Mutually Assured Destruction with Iran, or at least, that is what I am getting from Chirac's statement concerning nuclear weapons. The full statement can be found here. Unless I am grossly mistaken, Chirac has just informed Tehran that the French government will regard any terrorist actions sponsored or supported by Iran against France as a threat to its integrity as a nation-state, thereby justifying the use of nuclear weapons as retaliation. This is a form of Mutually Assured Destruction, with a moder twist. Now France will regard terrorist attacks as on the same level of danger as a nuclear attack, thereby instigating France into using nuclear weapons in retaliation, all the while knowing that Iran in turn will launch back at France. In short, the French have either accepted Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, or at the very leas consider it highly likely and are planning ahead for such a condition.

France's official policy can be summed up as such:

Terrorist Attack in France=Nuclear attack on France=Nuclear Retaliation.

Of course, the threshold was not specified by Chirac, nor should it be. Setting any kind of obvious standard would give terrorists more leeway. France is now forcing the Iranians to gamble on how much they are willing to take before using nukes. While this may have been the case before, it is in the open now.

This makes me wonder if the French think this alone will be adequate to protect them, or is this a result of desperation?