PARIS, March 21 -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday announced a plan to slash its air-based nuclear arsenal by one-third, but reiterated the country's policy of nuclear deterrent.

    France will reduce the number of its air-based nuclear weapons to less than 300, while maintaining its policy of deterrent as its "life insurance," Sarkozy said in the western coastal city of Cherbourg, where he attended the commissioning of a new nuclear ballistic missile launcher submarine (SNLE) "Le Terrible".

    The French president also mentioned for the first time a nuclear warning as an addition to its deterrent power.

    The new submarine is the "latest in the series of the four SNLE new generation submarines," after Le Triomphant, commissioned in 1997, Le Temeraire (1999) and Le Vigilant (2004), according to the French president's office spokesman David Martinon.