France, May 28 -- Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and French President Emmanuel Macron announced the plan at a meeting Wednesday in Paris, where they also signed a broader defence agreement that includes Norway joining a French-led nuclear weapons initiative.

The move is a shift for Norway, a member of NATO, but not of the European Union, and shares a border with Russia in the Arctic.

Norway has historically relied on NATO and the United States nuclear umbrella, which Store said would not change, but he described France's nuclear capabilities as "an important contribution to NATO's deterrence posture, which is important for us."

In March, Macron unveiled a programme under which France, the European Union's only nuclear-armed c...