The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, open for signing on October, 20 2017 caused a heated debate among the states, governmental organizations and NGOs. Despite the fact that 122 UN member-states signed it, no nuclear states decided to join the treaty and, probably, will not do it in the near future. France is not the exception. The author tries to examine the nuclear factor in the French foreign policy and evaluate the prospect of signing the Treaty by France. The author uses the concept of “offensive realism” to explain the nuclear modernization and tries to account for the current French policy on modernization of its nuclear arsenal precisely at the time when the idea of the complete nuclear ban is becoming more and more popular in the world.