Nuclear-armed fighter jets will be sent to an airbase near France’s German border by 2035, Emmanuel Macron said in a sign of his country’s willingness to extend its deterrent to protect Berlin from Russia.

In a speech at the Luxeuil-les-Bains base, Mr Macron said France would buy more Rafale warplanes as Donald Trump was holding controversial ceasefire talks with Vladimir Putin without Ukraine.

The French president later travelled to Germany to meet Friedrich Merz, the incoming Chancellor, who secured parliamentary backing for an unprecedented debt package to lavish over a trillion euros on the country’s run-down military and infrastructure.

The chancellor-in-waiting has said he will ask France and the UK for shelter under their nuclear umbrellas, if the US pulls out of Nato, and urges Europe to stand on its own two feet on defence.

By 2035, Luxeuil-les-Bains will become “the first base to receive the next version of the Rafale and its hypersonic nuclear missile”, Mr Macron said.

“Our country and our continent will have to continue to defend themselves, to equip themselves, to prepare if we want to avoid war.

“No one can say what will happen in the coming months and years. What I want is for us to be ready. What I want is for us to be protected.”