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M A S T E R ’S THESIS M-857 SHAND, Richard Walter THE NEW FRANCE— A CONTINUATION OF THE OLD? The American University, M.A., 1965 Political Science, international law and relations University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE NEW FRANCE A CONTINUATION OF THE OLD? by ,c' Richard w2 Shand Submitted to the Faculty of the School of International Service of The American University In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Signatures of Committ chairman:L: ^ - z t Date : />. Dean of hool AMERICAN UNIVERSITY l i b r a r y Date: SEP 8 1965 W a s h i n g t o n , o . c . CONTENTS PREFACE I. Eppur Si Muove Prologue to the Contemporary Era, Ramifications of World War II. French Post War Policies. Birth of the Fourth Republic. La Grandeur and the German Problem. France a la Europe. France, Rearmament and Alliance. France and Germany. II. Outstripped by Events ......................... 29 France vis a vis America. France and N.A.T.O. Neutralism Revived. Process of Unification. North Africa and the Death of the Fourth. III. Richelieu..................................... 58 Charles de Gaulle and the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle and Algeria. De Gaulle and L'Afrique Noire. De Gaulle and Europe. De Gaulle and Germany. De Gaulle and the East. De Gaulle and the Anglo-Saxons. IV. Shall Beam Immortal .............. 103 France and Equilibrium. France and Security. French Inferiority. De Gaulle and Old School Diplomacy. The Cycle of France. Bibliography ................................... 120 PREFACE "La France est une personne"^ is an ambiguous phase which connotes the French myth, realities, and unique paradox of her character and her history. Andre Maurois exclaimed that French history prior to the French revolution in 1789 seems as if it were created from books of legend: with its magnifi­ cent kings, adventurous foreign campaigns, and development of the awe-inspiring French culture and institutions. Indeed, for a nation that thrives on its history, France, even through­ out the nineteenth century, conceived almost legendary character­ istics, such as its adventurous Napoleon, gallant Boulanger, and perhaps concluding with the stature of Charles de Gaulle. French history, whether it be foreign or domestic, is truly rich. It should not be so surprising then that a man with the character of De Gaulle should appear as an agent from the French past, one who contains within himself every essense of French history— both politically, culturally, and socially. Charles de Gaulle, who has been fed with attitudes and opinions regarding French grandeur, thus reflects towards the French populace this form of national pride. ^Herbert Luethy, France Against Herself (New York: Meridian Books, 1955), p. 1. The French people, at least since the days of Napoleon Bonaparte, have become a major key in influencing governmental exercises in the maintenance of French status and greatness. Periodically the French become restless, yearning for a strong unifying force within their government to uplift their nation from stagnation and decay towards stength and dynamism. Napoleon III was an example of this restlessness and Charles de Gaulle is a present-day product of this weary inferiority which exists throughout France. Charles de Gaulle, feeding upon this national dilemma of inferiority, conducts his foreign policy accordingly. Reliance upon history, national prestige and honor, as factors governing the French people, are factors which also govern the affairs of state. It should be noted that not only do affairs of state predominate over the domestic problems of France, but governments of the French state throughout her history to cover up domestic cracks on the domestic front, have striven to avert mass attention towards foreign exploits. Charles de Gaulle, has not particularly followed the pattern of avoidance of domestic problems, but he has followed the pattern of satiating the French demand for La Grandeur. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss, from 1940 to the present, just how far De Gaulle has been contiggoas to this historical pattern: whether unique in his governance of the affairs of state or following the guidelines set by the past. Although comparative analysis accompanies each chapter, the major portion of any analytical study converges in my third and fourth chapters discussing respectively the foreign policy of President De Gaulle and the general approaches of his foreign policy vis a vis the past. I am deeply indebted to my thesis committee composed of Drs. Charles O. Lerche, Jr., and Durward V. Sandifer for their patience and constructive comments during the elabora­ tion of this paper. RWS April, 1965 CHAPTER I EPPUR SI MUOVE* La Nation...a France which has "always seen and under­ stood the world only as a projection of herself;"^ la Nation... a France in which ^11 men consider her "the universal home of O all who acknowledge the rights of men;" la Nation...a France in which the convulsive pathos and shibboleths of that fateful year 1789 find outlets and channels even today within the French state. "It was the dramatic acceleration of tendencies and developments which had their roots in the past"^ that caused the Revolution of 1789, says Gershoy. This past is rich in culture, bloodletting and glory, in which foreign policy was conducted strictly by the temperament of the king and in which *Eppur si muove comes from Galileo and means in essense: the world does move for good or ill. 1 Hubert Luethy, France Against Herself (New York: Meridian Books, 1955), p. 12. ^Ibid., p. 13. 3 Leo Gershoy, The French Revolution 1789-1799 (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1932), p. 4. the last of the Capetian kings relied more upon past glory et grandeur than upon creating an awareness of the change in expectations of the mass. Liberalism, the word that connotes progress towards modernity, broke forth upon the provinces of France to terminate not independent decentralized provinces, but united regional Départements which placed as a priority before the governing body the duty to satisfy the will of a vacillating people. This is the commencement of the new French state, built upon the foundation of the old and created out of the will of those administered; this is the beginning of a nation of French, not peoples; this is the beginning of a period of la grandeur. PROLOGUE TO THE CONTEMPORARY ERA The Revolution put an end to that era in France when the mass populace evoked no catalyst or obstacle in the policy making, domestic and foreign, of the central government. The peoples themselves divided into factions and cliques either were led by dictators or administered by weak, impotent govern­ ments . The populace, fed with Jocobin revolutionary doctrines and a love for glory and. status, never seemed to tolerate that form of government that did not satiate their unquenchable requirements. Particularly in the French foreign policies one finds a mixture of liberalism, conservatism, and even romanticism correlating the state's search for security, eguilibirum, grandeur and perhaps dominance. The Revolution converted French anxieties into an overt dynamism which found an outlet in French decision making; Napoleon Bonaparte created the French appetite for greatness and glory, and Napoleon III instituted romanticism within Prance. It was the unfortunate successive French governments that had to cope with the ramifi­ cations of these French autocrats and convulsions. The kings of the Restoration period, Louis XVIII and Charles X, could not have been expected to fulfill the void left by the Jacobin experience and Napoleonic deluge. The governments of the Third Republic which succeeded Napoleon III, were in a similar position of finding it difficult to uplift their country from the humiliating defeat left them by the Emperor Napoleon III. The struggle to acquire a place in the nation-state system has never abated since 1789. The early eruption of a liberal revolution, Napoleonic defeats, weak governments and the disastrous First and Second World Wars have continually harrassed French progression in world affairs. Even when France was considered strong, as prior to the Franco- Prussian War of 1870, she was indeed weak and inferior to her German neighbor. At the conclusion of the War of 1870, France continually declined in strength and prestige. The Third Republic could not supply the French people with a leader who could satisfy French demands in the international and domestic sphere. France moved from isolation into an alliance structure from which World War I ensured. France was, although victorious, again sapped of her strength and resources. Grasping at straws from her weakened condition, her aim was to devour German potential, thus leaving a German carcass unable to threaten the French nation. Because of French governmental ineptness, and perhaps British recalcitrance, this aim not only failed, but the German government under Adolf Hitler destroyed the Versailles Treaty, demonstrated the worthlessness of the Locarno Pacts of 192 5, and led the world into a Second World War in which France was occupied by her German for for four years. France would emerge from World War II into a world completely changed in strength and construct; power would be redistributed, nation-states reconstructed, and new and vociferous ideologies would be rampant throughout the world. It would be up to a Fourth Republic to determine whether France would keep pace in this new world born from war. RAMIFICATIONS OF WORLD WAR II It is difficult to discuss World War II and its immediate aftermath without repeating those same hackneyed,expressions of regret that the war ever happened. Yet these expressions and repetitions are significantly important in order to under­ stand the policies of the world in this contemporary era. World War II, as disastrous as it was, changed the schematic construct of the world.

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