Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson set out his country's position during a visit to the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, which is visiting Sweden.

Asked about the possibility of his country hosting French nuclear arms, he told reporters: "We have a clear doctrine in Sweden, which we most recently reiterated when we joined NATO.

"This states that we do not have permanent foreign troops or nuclear weapons stationed on Swedish soil in peacetime," he added. "This doctrine applies, so it is not an option."

However, he added: "If there were to be a war that somehow affected us, then it would be a completely different situation."

The Nordic country dropped two centuries of military non-alignment and applied for NATO membership after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, becoming the alliance's 32nd member in March 2024.

While the United States and Russia have thousands of nuclear warheads each, in Europe only France and Britain have atomic weapons, with the combined total of warheads in the hundreds.

As uncertainty over US military support for Europe has grown, European leaders have started to consider how to address the continent's lack of a credible deterrent.

"As long as Russia has nuclear weapons in our immediate vicinity, it is good that two European democracies also have nuclear weapons," Kristersson told reporters.