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: ^
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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. France, to her humiliation, was defeated in quick time in 1940; Britain was on her knees,
and if it had not been for the misguided Hitler, Russia would have been prone before the conqueror. Before entering
into the discussion of the immediate foreign policy of the
French nation, which continued unhaltingly during her
subjugation, it is imperative to discuss the major changes
in the nation-state system immediately after the defeat of
the Axis powers. There were two basic ramifications;
(1) the power structure was completely altered and centered
now within two super powers, the United States and the Soviet Union; and (2) an orbiting of nations began around these two major powers. Although the power attained by these two major nations soon began to slip away, and circumscription of the orbiting nations began to decline, each of these World War II manifestations played a tremendous part in determining the destiny of world national relations.
The United States and the Soviet Union, both of whom withdrew into isolation after the First World War, found that after the Second, they held all the cards and were in many instances depended upon by the smaller nations. Both countries possessed the largest arsenals, the largest land area, and enormous industrial capabilities, particularly the United States which was left virtually untouched by destruction. The old powers, however, had declined consider ably. Britain, although still holding on to most of her empire, was desperate for economic aid to expedite her recovery.
France, who was subject to occupation for four years, was also ravaged with conflict from which immediate recovery seemed remote. Germany, needless to say, was not only raped of everything she had, but also divided by the victorious coalition of the war. The resurgence of these powers of the old order, aiming at acquiring what they had lost, placed within the shadow of the two new powers, remains paramount in the conduct of international relations to this very day, twenty years after the war.
Perhaps the most unique by-product of the War was the development of a post-war bipolar situation which initially
froze. It's true that after previous wars states jockeyed
to find allies that would be beneficial to their national
interests, but never before had states en mass associated
themselves with a major power out of sheer dependency as
after the Second World War. In the case of the West, it was
found militarily and economically wise to submit to the
Cold War policies of the United States. The French case is perhaps the most interesting, which I will discuss in due
course.
As far as the Eastern nations were concerned, their choice was somewhat limited. At Yalta and Potsdam the Soviet
Union was able to create a column of weak buffer states to protect her Western boundary which had been crossed by many
a European army. Out of this buffer only two states can be said, perhaps, to have joined the Soviet grouping by their
own national will. They were Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Although both bloc groupings later became somewhat less
solidified after dependence became near to being void of meaning, the circumstances of this new nation state construct 8 created: (1) East-West Cold War policies towards each other;
(2) a submerging of "small nation" national interests, being replaced by higher Cold War policy prerogatives; and (3) bal ancing of the world states into a stalemated position.
with this general background, I can now turn to a detailed discussion of the role of France in these new world conditions.
FRENCH POST-WAR POLICIES
French foreign policy never ceased to function even with the French capitulation through the Armistice of the
26th of June, 1940. Indeed, the "free zone" of France
(the Vichy government under Marshall Petain who had received full powers from the National Assembly) was restricted in its affairs because of German pressure and Pierre Laval, a member of the Petain cabinet, tended toward conciliation with the
Germans; but the resistance movement within France and the diplomacy of the Free French State declared by General de Gaulle on June 18th, played an important role for France, particularly during the immediate aftermath of war.
It was realized by the French that "France could be liberated only by the establishment of an anti-German coalition and that coalition's victory; she was to be saved by the tenacity of England, by Russia's entrance into the war,
by the intervention of the United States and by her own 4. resistance elements working as a team with the allies."
Charles de Gaulle, as leader of the Free French and
proclaimed in 1943 as head of the Provisional Government,
had after the defeat of his country a two-fold task: first, with the aid of the French resistance and French colonies,
to assist as much as possible in the defeat of Germany and
the evacuation of the Germans from the French metropolitan
area; secondly. De Gaulle had the task of upholding through
out the world the big power status of his country in addition
to having French opinions heard in war and post-war policy
making. This last point was particularly dominant at the
conclusion of the war during the peace talks.
The first task was eventually fulfilled with the French
reoccupation of their hojmeland in 1944 and the German defeat
in the following year. The second task was more difficult
and her complete defeat at the hands of the Nazis essentially
destroyed any image that she had held of national status
particularly within her colonies.
"I, General de Gaulle, soldier and officer of Prance,
know that I can talk in the name of France,"5 De Gaulle
^Andre Maurois, A History of France (New York: H. Wolff, 1956), p. 532.
^Luethy, op. cit, p. 94. 10 did speak for his nation until his resignation from the
Provisional Government with the instituting of the Fourth
Republic.
There existed during the war the Anglo-Saxon problem of the place that France held in the scheme of current events.
There was the Vichy Government which still held diplomatic relations with the United States (none was held with Britain); there was Admiral Darlan in Algiers who, taking orders from
Petain, would play an important part in the Allied Operation
Torch on North Africa; and then there was the Free French force under Charles de Gaulle. As events would prove, these problems were soon eliminated. Petain no longer became a free agent of the French with the German decision to occupy all of France because of the fear of French treachery. Admiral
Darlan, who at first resisted the Anglo-American landings on
North Africa, later entered into agreement with the Allies.
The Free French under De Gaulle were at first ignored in regard to the North African operation, but after the assassination of Darlan by a young Free French enthusiast.
General Giraud followed by de Gaulle moved into the vacuum.
Some sort of French unity had been contrived by the intro duction of the French Committee of National Liberation
(later Provisional Government) in Algiers. 11
It was not until liberated France received the
Provisional Government in Paris in 1944 that the Americans recognized de jure that government.
Shorn of effective power as he was. General de Gaulle had deliberately and consistently let no occasion pass to assert and insist upon the rights of France, a position that often made him a trying and cantankerous partner, especially where the American President was concerned.G
De Gaulle soon found that "the influence any nation commands is in relation to the amount of physical force it can gather.
De Gaulle's immediate aim at the conclusion of the war was to make sure that his Eastern frontier was held secure, a French policy dating from perhaps the consolidation of the
German states with the Treaty of Vienna. To achieve this, he wished to have the Rhineland and the Rhur separated from Germany, the division of Germany into separate autonomous states such as existed after the Treaty of Westphalia; perhaps an alliance with Russia to gain her support on
French European plans and eventually the achievement for
France of the enviable role as neutralist mediator between
^Rene Albrecht Carrie, A Diplomatic History of Europe (New York: Harper, 1958), p. 593.
^Andre Geraud, "Can France Again be a Great Power?" Foreign Affairs, XXX (October, 1951), p. 24. 12 both the United States and the Soviet Union.
De Gaulle's thinking, firmly anchored in history, was as firmly centered on the Rhine frontier and the idea of political and strategic guarantees against a fourth German invasion as if in the meantime the deluge had not swept over Europe, and his practical conclusions coincided with those of the Communists, whose thinking was centered on Moscow,®
Taking off from this point of view, in December of 1944,
General de Gaulle and M. Bidault flew to Moscow to sign an alliance with Russia; this twenty year alliance focused upon the future rise of Germany. This alliance lasted about two months, for with the beginning of the Yalta
Conference held in the Crimea on February 4, 1945, the
Soviet Union forsook its new ally by refusing to have
France participate and also refusing to have France involved in the partitioning of Germany. It was only upon the urging of Prime Minister Churchill of Britain that France received a fourth of German territory. It is interesting to note that although De Gaulle had a latent distrust of the Anglo-
Saxons, particularly after Algiers, it was to be the
Anglo-Saxons, knowing that France was to be an integral part
Q Luethy, op. cit., p. 111. 13
of a reconstructed Europe, who would uphold French interests
during these conferences. This proved true again in September
of that same year when at London with the Council of Foreign
Ministers meeting to discuss the peace treaties with Italy
and with Germany's satellites, the Soviet Union tried to
limit French participation in the drafting of the treaties.
BIRTH OF THE FOURTH REPUBLIC
“De Gaulle [soon] clashed with the French Constituent
Assembly over various issues. He was more interested in the grandeur of France and her destiny than in economics and
finance— thus he resigned to be succeeded by Felix Gouin
a socialist. The Third Republic, as plainly seen within
France, could not be revived, for it became the scapegoat of
treason, incompetence and military ineptness, a position very similar to the government of Napoleon III after 1870.
Thus the Fourth Republic was born in the spring of 1946 with the French National Assembly being the strong branch of
the government with the Executive being subservient.
It is rather pathetic to think of France being governed by a rather weak and confused government during a period
^Maurois, op. cit., p. 543. 13 of a reconstructed Europe, who would uphold French interests during these conferences. This proved true again in September of that same year when at London with the Council of Foreign
Ministers meeting to discuss the peace treaties with Italy and with Germany's satellites, the Soviet Union tried to limit French participation in the drafting of the treaties.
BIRTH OF THE FOURTH REPUBLIC
"De Gaulle [soon] clashed with the French Constituent
Assembly over various issues. He was more interested in the grandeur of France and her destiny than in economics and finance— thus he resigned to be succeeded by Felix Gouin a socialist."9 The Third Republic, as plainly seen within
France, could not be revived, for it became the scapegoat of treason, incompetence and military ineptness, a position very similar to the government of Napoleon III after 1870.
Thus the Fourth Republic was born in the spring of 1946 with the French National Assembly being the strong branch of the government with the Executive being subservient.
It is rather pathetic to think of France being governed by a rather weak and confused government during a period
^Maurois, op. cit., p. 543. 14 when the world and the French nation were to make vast alterations and modifications. The Fourth Republic faced three major problems during its short tenure, one of which would destroy it and promote a Fifth Republic. The first problem of prime concern was the maintenance of the stature of grandeur which supposedly was lost during World War II; secondly, there was gravitation towards European unification; and thirdly, the shedding of a vast empire.
LA GRANDEUR AND THE GERMAN PROBLEM
It was necessity that drove France into the arms of
the Western nations; but it was la grandeur that led Prance after the war towards a hoped for mediating position; towards
independence from external interference in building her dominance in Europe and in defense of her nation; towards a
neutralist policy during the late Forties and early Fifties;
and finally towards attaining security through methods of
destruction and subordinance of a potentially dangerous
Germany.
It is understandable why French leaders during and
immediately after the War felt anguish in regard to the French
de facto subordinate status among the rest of the victorious 15 powers. France felt and still does feel, that no matter how physically weak she might be at the time, she was an original charter member of the big power club and therefore immediately without question admitted to major big power conferences; no one would be uncouth enough to ask her for her credentials.
From this description of her position, one sees why France was to receive permanent membership on the Security Council of the United Nations.
As mentioned earlier, with De Gaulle's detachment with the Anglo-Saxon nations, he felt that France would be better equipped to play a mediating role between the two new great powers. France alone could set the course of European trends, and therefore was in an excellent bargaining position.
We see the formation from this position of the Soviet alliance of 1944. With the failure of their Treaty, because of
Soviet non-support of the French at Yalta and the French non-support of the Soviets in regard to Eastern Europe and
Germany, France was driven into the arms of the West.
Because of the distressing situation that Europe was in after World War II, both militarily and economically, a pattern of dependence was established which favored the
Western super power of the United States. 16
Before actually participating in this subordinate status France's weight was immediately tested at the end of the War with regard to Germany. France had wished Germany to be completely weakened and even divided into smaller states in order to keep the French western boundary secure from a fourth German invasion, and thus to maintain French dominance in Europe. Britain and America, however, believed that, with the growing appetite of the Soviet Bear, Germany not only had to be united but economically and militarily sound in order to prevent Soviet aggrandizement within Europe.
Both Britain and France had maintained their same post-
World War I policies towards Germany.
In January 1945, De Gaulle was saying; "France is very clear on the problem of the Rhine. The Rhine is French security and I also think a large part of the security of the rest of the world." Three months later. Foreign Minister Bidault was saying; "The resources of the Ruhr should be taken away from the German war potential and put under an international regime.French designs for annexation of these areas was out of the question, but control was indeed a French aim.
^®Edgar Purniss, France. Troubled Ally (New York; Praeger, 1960), p. 14.
^^Ibid.. p. 15. 17
Prance earlier had declared that she had no intention of cooperating with the allies insofar as setting up centralized administrative services in Germany. What Prance wanted was a truncated Germany, along with the detachment of
the Rhineland and "its establishment as a sovereign state,... 12 and the internationalization of the Ruhr."
With lack of support from the United States, Soviet
Union and Britain, France achieved relatively nothing of what she wished. The Rhineland and the Ruhr were not detached from Germany and the determination of the United
States and Britain to rebuild Germany was paramount in their foreign policies. France could not arrest the tide, for on December 2, 1946, Britain and the United States prepared to merge their two occupation zones. This was the beginning of creating a sovereign political regime within Germany which
France was powerless to stop.
The French position became slightly modified during thœ year 1947, in which she felt that German economic unity would be accepted by her, but German political decentralization was to be a prime French policy in order to keep herself
and the world secure from a reconstituted Germany. France
^^Ibid. 18 even abandoned the notion of an independent Rhineland in favor of creating a four power supervision over the Ruhr.
With Russian eagerness to maintain a foothold in the area, both the United States and Britain were unreçeptive to this latter French proposal. France, however, was compensated at the Moscow meeting of the Council of Ministers in the spring of 1947, when she was still allowed to administer the Saar region and was guaranteed a specific amount of coal from the Ruhr over a period of six months.
It was not long before France again modified her posi tion by enabling a reconstructed Germany to participate within a united Europe. The Continent would be protected then by the constriction of German economy and defense.
FRANCE A LA EUROPE
Militarily and economically France was weaker than she had ever been and was therefore more dependent upon sustenance from some form of pump priming method. She attained this sustenance from the Marshall Plan promoting economic rehabilitation, and from the Brussels Pact and N.A.T.O., which was able not only to help rebuild her military standards, but to give her a genuine claim to security even though her N voice was obscured by the more vociferous Americans. 19
It was in 1947 that Secretary of State George Marshall made his offer of aid to- Europe. From this offer came the
United States Foreign Assistance Act of 1948 with the
Economic Co-operation Administration to administer it; within Europe a body of cooperative nations formed the
Organization for European Economic Cooperation in April of
1948. France, still trying for a mediating position, and not believing as yet that Europe was hopelessly divided, tried desperately to have the Soviet Union and her satellites participate, but due to fear of Western interference in the
Communist economics, the Soviet Union (with the relief of the West) declined the American offer.
It was the recreating of Western defense under the sponsorship of the United States that aroused the fears of the French, for if to create a strong Europe was the object of American military policy Germany would have to play an
integral part. In other words, a German military establish ment would have to be created and then incorporated within the Western defense system. It was evident that this, unlike the economic rehabilitation of Germany of which the
French finally approved, would meet with disapproval within
the French National Assembly. 20
During the first years after 1945 armament was low on the list of French priorities, as it was also in most other countries. Four interrelated events occurred, however, which promoted the expansion of the French military machine:
(1) the Marshall Plan which pumped financial energy into a prone nation; (2) the Indo-Chinese war which almost forced
France to assume a larger military burden; (3) Communist belligerency towards the West by means of the Berlin blockade of 1948, and the Czechoslovakia coup of the same year; and (4) the construction of military agreements such 13 as the Brussels Pact, N.A.T.O. and the W.E.U.
The French government, under the Socialist Paul Ramadier, still dazzled with the illusion at that time of playing the role of the great mediator between East and West, concluded in February of 1947 the Dunkirk Treaty with Great Britain as a balance against the still existent treaty with the
Soviet Union, concluded in 1944. The Dunkirk Treaty was the beginning of the creation of closer ties with the West, out of necessity (geography, ideology, culture, etc.), and the commencement of French military build-up.
^^Edgar Furniss, France; Keystone to Western Defense (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954), p. 31. 21
"By the end of 1947 it was clear to its leaders that
France alone was not strong enough either to mediate between
East and West or to induce the three great allies of World
War II to maintain a tight rein on G e r m a n y . Her new policy was first to build up a strong secure system within
a Western alliance, and secondly, of which I shall speak later,
to look towards a united Europe which would restrict Germany.
FRANCE, REARMAMENT, AND ALLIANCE
"The Brussels Treaty of 17 March 1948 (signed by Belgium,
France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) pledged its members to establish a joint defensive system and also to strengthen their economic and cultural ties."^^
This Treaty not only began military cooperation, but was one
of the first links towards a united Europe. The major object of this Treaty, as was the object of the Treaty of Dunkirk, was the fear of German revival, but secondary and soon to become a prominent factor in the creation of Western defense, was the belligerency of the Soviet Unioon. That nation alone
^^Edgar Furniss, op. cit., p. 24.
l^PEP, European Organisations (London; George Allen and Unwin, 1959), p. 161. 22
in 1948 subjugated Czechoslovakia, threatened Greece, blockaded Berlin and pressured Yugoslavia. Russia was, there
fore, replacing Germany as a prime concern responsible for
tangible defense measures in the West, and with the
assistance of the United States, towards the formulation in
the following year of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Premier Queuille stressed that the N.A.T.O. alliance did
not violate the Franco-Soviet treaty of 1944, but "formally
committed the United States to the defense of Europe.
The United States was to build within N.A.T.O. a military hegemony throughout Europe upon which the nations of that
Continent were duly reliant.
The fear of German rearmament was a prime concern to
the French National Assembly during their debate for the
treaty ratification. They wished to defend Europe on German
soil without German participation; therefore under the
condition that additional members would only be admitted after
legislative approval did the National Assembly give its con- 17 sent to the ratification. One year after the signing of
IGpurniss, op. cit., p. 37
^^Ibid., p. 39, 23 the N.A.T.O. agreement the aid from the United States began pouring into Europe, the latter having up to that time made no significant progress in its own rearmament program vis a vis the Soviet Empire, which had already made great strides in arming during this period.
FRANCE AND GERMANY
"Control and coal" was the theme of the French government in 1949 over the German situation. But this theme bent under
Anglo-American pressure, as did most of the French-German policies of this period. The French wished to return to the good old days when Germany consisted of many autonomous states; this inflection was visible when, on March 11, 1948, the National Assembly proposed the idea of a Federal Germany.
German political decentralization; European federation, in which many independent Germanies might be separately associated; reparations; control of the Ruhr— and the whole system to be made permanent in the name of French security...^®
This was the sum of French-German policy under the leadership of Foreign Minister Bidault. It was not long after that the winds changed in France, from which a German government was to be constituted with the Germans deciding on its form.
^^Ibid., p. 40. 24
The question of the Ruhr had also changed from at first
a call for its detachment, then internationalization, and
finally on December 28th, 1948, the Ruhr .Authority was to
control the distribution of the Ruhr resources. The complex was to be decentralized thus presenting a weak factor in
German potential.
The Saar problem within Germany was a special Franco-
German problem, for De Gaulle had stated earlier that this
problem was strictly within the sphere of interests of
Germany and France only. The Saar was in a very favorable
position after the war, for by being under the control of
the French, who would directly benefit from the Saar mines,
the Saarlanders would not be treated as a conquered peoples,
quite the contrary, they would be treated with favorable
status. Conrad Adenauer, then Chancellor of the German
Republic, felt that the Saar region should be reunited again
with Germany, an attitude quite similar to that of the French
in 1870 over Alsace-Lorraine, The French, well aware of
this situation, as well as aware of the Anglo-American
attitudes towards a revitalized Germany, felt that the only
way to keep control over the Saar territory was to create
an autonomous political entity out of the region to be admitted
into the Council of Europe. It was soon after, in 1949, that 25 the Council of Europe accepted the French policy towards the
Saar, when Adenauer withdrew his opposition, but only on the condition that this was not the Saar's final status.
With this thorn temporarily removed from the Franco-
German relations, the problem of the rearmament of Germany along with the divergent interests of the United States and
France made itself present.
By 1949 the question of German rearmament was being discussed rather discreetly among the officials of every government in the Atlantic alliance. The United States felt that for the betterment of a strong united Europe, it would be best to have Germany herself contribute to the allied armed forces rather than rely upon that of the United States,
Britain, and France. Men such as General Billotte in France were opposed to ideas of a European army integrating the forces of Germany. It was, however, with the invasion of
South Korea that the question of German rearmament became of paramount concern within the Atlantic alliance. The United
States was now confirmed in its belief that the Communist nation of the Soviet Union was imperialistic and therefore was most conscious of the need of a strong Europe including
Germany. Winston Churchill in Britain, now out of power. 26
advocated the integration of a European army and
proclaimed British participation and support in a united
Western Europe which included a rearmed Germany.
Prance found herself backed up against the alliance wall. On the one hand, without Germany Europe would be
defenseless without the aid of the United States; on the
other hand, with a European integrated army and with Europe
still not politically unified, Germany could be held unchecked
in its military expansion. With the Korean crisis at hand
and pressures from the United States for a European build-up
of forces, France had no other choice than to submit to
plans which would rearm Germany.
The outcome of the discussion was embodied in the
Pleven Plan, issued by the French Defense Minister, for an
integrated Western European army (a watered down version) •
The heart of the Pleven Plan was the scrambling of small units into European divisions. German forces could thus be used, but no German national army or German General Staff would come into existence.
The European Defense Community, as it was called, was duly signed by the countries of Little Europe with Britain
^^Albrecht-Carrie, op. cit., p. 634. 27
(now under the control of Churchill) abstaining from the venture she espoused so vigorously before. But the E.D.C. still had to be ratified and found its fate within the iramobilist governments of the Fourth Republic. With each new French Premier came the procrastination of presenting the E.D.C. to the hostility of the French National Assembly.
It took a man of strong courage and versatile political skill such as Premier Mendes France to present it to the Assembly and with no prodding from the government the National Assembly quickly discarded it on August 30, 1954.
The day was saved, however, when London called a meeting of the E.D.C. powers. Agreements were reached in regard to the rearmament of Germany aid were soon implemented with the
Paris Accords less than a month later (October 23, 1954).
The Accords provided for the following:
A. The termination of the occupation regime in Western Germany.
B. The revision and extension of the Brussels Treaty, to include the German Federal Republic and Italy, under a new name— Western European Union.
C. The admission of the German Federal Republic to NATO. 28
D. A Franco-German agreement on the Saar, which was to have a European Statute within the framework of WEU.^O
The French National Assembly, still fearful of a rearmed
Germany, yet wishing for closer British ties and still dependent upon the United States as its benefactor, ratified the agreements on December 30, 1954, by the close vote of
287 to 260.
Thus Germany became once again a part of the European processes. Animosities still existent within many of Europe's nations were suppressed in the face of a new and larger obstacle— the then hostile and vindictive Soviet Empire.
It is interesting to note that General de Gaulle, who would later call for closer ties with Germany and shun England, was one of the main opponents to the E.D.C. and the W.E.U. as he intrigued at his retirement home of Colombey les-deux- eglises.
2 0PEP, op. cit.. pp. 210-211, CHAPTER II
OUTSTRIPPED BY EVENTS
It was inevitable that la grandeur de France would clash with the American braggadocio. This was forseen by two patterns of thought and action: by the French appeal for a neutralist, later independent, status which was a ramification of the French contempt towards her post-war subordinate status to the United States; and by the determination of the United
States for a greater proportion of European activity towards creating a strong Europe within the Atlantic Alliance domi nated by herself. I have already mentioned the divergence of views between France and America towards rearmament, particularly in regard to Germany, but I have not mentioned the new developing trends of thought among French government officials regarding their valuable yet subordinate nation.
FRANCE VIS A VIS AMERICA
It was from the beginning of 1953 that the French non-Communist opinion began to turn away from the ridgid U.S.
Cold War policies. The days of the return of French xenophobia 30 had come. The rejection of the E.D.C. was a symbolic characteristic of this French neutralist character. French neutralism was a seed in French thought before this time: examples of this were the mediating policy of De Gaulle at the conclusion of the war; in 1946 with Pierre Cot, a former
Popular Front minister with pro-Communist leanings, calling for a neutralist policy; or as in 1950, with Etienne Gilson writing for the government mouthpiece Le Monde in favor of
French neutrality, arguing that the Soviet Union wanted peace, aggressiveness was a myth, and that the only real concern of the Soviet Union was the Socialist experiment.
It was Gilson who called for benevolent neutrality towards the United States, proclaiming that France should and could build her own defenses, yet still rely upon United States support. This early trend of thought, however, was soon broken and practically destroyed when in 1950 the North
Koreans with Soviet backing invaded across the 38th parallel.
During the Korean War the French Government moved from a neutralist stance to one of collective security, but at the war's end because of fear of a third world war, the government returned to its policy of stressing uncompromising neutralism.^
^John Marcus, Neutralism and Nationalism in France; A Case Study (New York: Bookman Assoc., 1958), p. 98. 31
General de Gaulle, who lived in semi-retirement,
"represented the very essence of French nationalism.. .dedicated to French independence in foreign p o l i c y . it was he who opposed the Marshall Plan and even N.A.T.O.? during the Fifties his nationalism led him from opposition to the E.D.C. to opposition to American policy in Europe and the Far East; from opposition to American policy to opposition to the
United States itself, from opposition to the United States to the assertion that the United States and the U.S.S.R. were equal dangers to peace.^ America, with its McCarthy and defensive war threats, was made out to be the uncompro mising villain in many respects. It should be noted, however, that this French neutralist tendency was always moderate and not necessarily expressed by the mass populace in France.
It was felt that there was more to lose within France than gain by playing the mid-wife.
FRANCE AND N.A.T.O.
I have illustrated the fact that the original French plan for security, i.e., the subordination of the Germans,
^Edgar Furniss, Weaknesses in French Foreign Policy (Princeton: Princeton University, 1954), p. 15.
^Marcus, op. cit., p. 105. 32 was thwarted by Anglo-American pressures and that the French soon became accommodating towards the fact that the best means towards attaining security was to integrate German power within an allied or European structure. In other words, the French seeing that Germany on the Continent of
Europe was not only still a potential military threat, but a potential threat to French supremacy on the Continent of
Europe, adjusted their policy accordingly. With this in mind, I would like next to turn to the subordinate position that the French have found within N.A.T.O., the military superstructure of the West.
The Atlantic Pact was "of the classical type for the common defense of its members who professed their peaceful intent. Spurred into consolidation by the Vandenburg Reso lution in 1948, and becoming an extention of the then existing
Brussels Pact, N.A.T.O. was directed mainly at the then hostile Soviet Union and specifically assuming the role as protector of Western Europe. It was to be assumed by the
United States that she would carry the main bulk of military defense, but this was not to mean that each
‘^Rene Albrecht-Carrie, A Diplomatic History of Europe (New York: Harper, 1958), p. 624. 33 of the European nations would not contribute towards the common effort.
France found, however, that as the N.A.T.O. machinery was developing she was subordinate to her erstwhile allies— the Anglo-Saxons. Particularly with the development of nuclear weapons, the United States while condoning the British for their development in the field in 1952, was yet condemning the proliferation of nuclear weapons by other nations friend or foe which, of course, included the French. "French opinion had built up a resentment amounting to a belief in the existence of a virtual Anglo-Saxon directorate within
NATO.
By the time De Gaulle had come to power in 1958, the
French specified four specific grievances: that the French had no essential responsibilities and that the British pre dominated the sector commands of the Channel Committee;
Great Britain was in a more important position than France in the European command; that the English language was replacing French within the administration of S.H.A.P.E.; and that under Article 6, of the N.A.T.O. Agreement, N.A.T.O. was to support France in Algeria, but as yet none had done so;
^Dorothy Pickles, The Fifth French Republic (New York: Praeger, 1962), p. 189. 34
in fact, several members had voted against France on her Algerian policy in the United Nations.^
By looking at the position of the military prerequisites
and objectives of the Atlantic Alliance from an objective
viewpoint, one can explain away the reason for an Anglo-Saxon
domination of the organization by looking at the French
political and military picture. France during most of the
1950's (particularly after the fall of Mendes France in 1954
until the overthrow of the Fourth Republic in 1958) had a
government entrenched in immobilism, a term derived from the
fact that the nation was governed by the multitude of National
Assembly deputies of equally multitudinous ideas and interests.
Nothing, therefore, was really ever accomplished by the
governments of the Fourth Republic except when the sovereignty
of the nation was threatened and even then the accomplishment was usually of a negative character, such as the destruction
of the E.D.C. Another characteristic of the Fourth Republic was that the military in France was being absorbed first in
the war in Indo-China ending in 1954 and taken up again on
^Ibid. 35 another front in Algeria. By the nature of the French state and government, military budgets were low and usually operating within a deficit. Thus in years such as 1952,
1953, and 1954, military assistance from the United States 7 rose to 18.8% of the total French national budget. France was in the peculiar position of complaining of her lowly status yet unable through her own governmental confusion to alter her position.
NEUTRALISM REVIVED
France, even with her immobilist government and sub standard armed forces, found a new twig to grasp at, and because of her eager search to find it she was probably the first to seize upon it. I had mentioned earlier the French intent towards a mediation position between East and West, and later when this failed towards a more passive position.
This was revived during the "peace offensive" of the early
Fifties made by the Soviet Union towards the West. By promoting conciliation between the two contending powers and perhaps eventually a detente, France could easily fill
7 Furniss, France, Troubled Ally, p. 173. 36 the role as neutralist mediator between the two. Thus, while Secretary of State Dulles was expounding the position that the Soviets must prove their willingness to negotiate by tangible acts, and while the Soviets were obliging by withdrawing their troops from Austria (even though quite reluctantly) and later under the pressures of events releasing the remaining prisoners of war, and signing the Korean armistice, the French felt that her moment had come.
It was the British, however, who were to do the major urging for a Summit conference between the major powers instead of the French government. The French, being in an awkward governmental position, were unable to apply any measure of pressure or voice towards that objective. Thus, in 1955, the abortive Summit Conference was held in Geneva between four heads of state— President Eisenhower (well coached by Secretary Dulles and the opinions of the United
States populace). Prime Minister Bulganin (who was accompanied by the later Premier Khruschev), Anthony Eden of Britain, and the inconsequential French Prime Minister Francois Faure.
Nothing was accomplished at this meeting, including the tempering of East-West relations. Thus, the world entered the crucial year of 1956. It was during the year 1956 that 37
the French saw two main images, the first an image of the
Soviet Union, and the second a more vivid image of herself.
The French neutralist hopes weee, although not destroyed by any means, stunned by the Soviet advance into Hungary during the letter's revolt against Soviet rule. It was from
this incident that the entire world, which had forgotten previous encroachments and atrocities while hoping for Soviet moderation, began to see anew the potential and often real
Soviet threat.
The French view of herself seems at this point to be much more important, for the event that ensued in 1956,
almost simultaneously with the Hungarian revolt, was one that
confirmed the French belief in her only too real status in
the world of real power. This event was the Suez crisis.
With the threat of Gamal Nasser to nationalize the Suez, the
French had found an ally in Britain to undertake the military
operation of enforcing French and British rights in the use
of the Canal. This is important mainly in the fact that
the United States refused to support their operation.
Because of trying to acquire some Arab support, Soviet
reprisal threats and the genuine threat of World War III, the
United States pressured her allies to withdraw. This would
present no major problem to a nation already realizing her 38
subordinance, but for a nation imbued with the idea of
grandeur, tradition, and power, this humiliation and psychological defeat would become ingrained as a direct
assault against the French nation.
La grandeur for France, therefore, during the course of
the Fourth Republic had met with failure after failure, in which case real power was able to play the hand better than
that of relative power. Dynamism and strength was to cast
aside immobilism and confusion, and modern catalysts were to
replace past and outworn glories. For truly, France during
the short-lived period of the Fourth Republic not only lost
the material means as a major world power, but indeed lost her image as well.
PROCESS OF UNIFICATION
The impotent Fourth Republic was faced with a second
startling dynamism within Europe which involved the sub
ordination of a nation's own basic interest in support of the
cohesion of the whole, commonly known as the dynamic trend
toward European integration, or community. This shift
towards European integration can be traced from the initial
government cooperative efforts that were involved with the 39 formation of the necessary Organization of European Economic
Cooperation (O.E.E.C.), to the Council of Europe (a mere consultative body), to the defense cooperative effort envi sioned in N.A.T.O., to the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community (E.C.S.C.), with its restricted supra national body in control of coal and steel traffic; and finally to the European Economic Community aiming towards common tariffs and quotas. The French position is interesting in that initially reluctant to manifest herself in this direction, she was eventually to play a key role and often be an obstacle within the greater European community.
Nowhere else in the world is the national state so deeply rooted as in France, and nowhere else has the root system of the national state so completely invaded the whole of the nation's mental and material life.®
LA nation du France, humming "la Marseillaise," kept this in mind when in 1947 the cooperative O.E.E.C. developed
in order to rehabilitate and reconstruct with American aid an old and vital Europe. The original plan of the project was that America would supply the roof and Europe the house
in which a solid aid program and rehabilitation project would ensue. It was unfortunate, however, that the
8Lue thy, op. cit., p. 427. 40
Americans supplied the roof, but the house was never built, for the aid programs were more of a bilateral nature between
European member states, each one being separate and therefore each an individual entity under American economic and
Q military hegemony.
The reasons for this breakdown in the cohesion of the
European states under a sturdy institution can be cited as perhaps being the overt fear of a strong potential Germany, the French enticement of the Soviet Union into the aid program by such means as promising the creation of individual state aid requirements instead of a European market sheet; and the pressures in many of the countries for fear of foreign domination and hegemony and the loss of traditional national interests and sovereignty. The Communists and Gaullists were in accord on this issue within France.
Although it was the intial hope of the United States for an integrated strong Europe, it was the British voice that sought the direction of integration. It was Britain's
Sir Winston Churchill, then out of office, who lent his voice and prestige towards European integration, and it was from this that in 1949 the Council of Europe was formed.
^Ibid., pp. 352-359. 41
Churchill spoke as early as March of 1943 through the British
BBC in which he outline his plans; after the British general election of July 1945, he continually urged for a United States of Europe. It was at Zurich on September 19, 1946 that he proposed his idea for a Council of Europe. The "Council of
Europe consisting of a Committee of Ministers, meeting in private and solely responsible to the member governments, and a Consultative Assembly to deliberate and make recommendations to the Committee of Ministers, but to have no legislative functions.
The schemes of European integration had been merely of a cooperative or consultative nature. The O.E.E.C., even though successful in the rehabilitation of Europe, had no supra-nationalistic characteristics; N.A.T.O., with its
American umbrealla, again was in the position of being a cooperative effort; and of course the Council of Europe became an impotent stagnant organ of debate. It was from this, however, that Robert Schumann, the foreign minister of
France, became the benefactor along with Jean Monnet of a new institution for the pooling of German and French steel
^®PEP, European Organisations (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1959), p. 6. 42 and coal, later to be known as the European Coal and
Steel Community.
It is with this institution that French foreign policy took a shift. It is to be recalled that French foreign policy had already turned from hampering German growth, which was a futile attempt anyway, towards a milder more flexible policy of finding security by integrating Germany into Europe with close intertwining economic ties with France. As Foreign
Minister Schumann said; "We want to make any war between
France and Germany not only impossible, but materially impossible.The Schumann Plan, however, was no sooner agreed upon when the British abstained from participation.
For it was the French hope that Britain would be able to counterbalance the participation of the German Republic.
The French, nevertheless, just recuperating from another government crisis in which the Bidault government fell and was succeeded by Rene Pleven, signed the agreement on
April 18, 1951, with the French National Assembly ratifying the treaty on December 13, 1951, the treaty going into effect six months later.
It is at this point, when the six member nations began to function efficiently under the coal and steel pool, that
^'^Furniss, France. Troubled Ally, p. 53. 43 the French position vis a vis Britain altered. For she now found active assistance and support from her Continental neighbors and allies: Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy. This was of considerably dynamism considering
that overt distrust was developing over the growing power of
West Germany. This would be a trend that one must reflect upon.
The European Coal and Steel Community was the initiator in Europe of the supranational institution: the High
Authority. "The main feature of the powers of the High
Authority is its right to deal directly with the coal and steel enterprises of the Community without passing through the national governments."12
The next tangible evidence of the European movement was the establishment of the European Economic Community. After the fall of the Mendes-Frances regime, which had shied away
from integration, the subsequent French governments plunged
into the movement hoping that from it French internal weaknesses would be cured. France, therefore, entered the negotiations
12 PEP, op. cit., p. 237. 44 but with lists of reservations and amendments which she believed had to be added to the treaty in order to place safeguards upon French internal and external (i.e.. Empire) sovereignty. She was able to attain for five years the association of her territories, and she achieved her objectives by having the final say in European proposals given to the
Council of Ministers who were representatives of the member governments. France was also, in order that her economy would be able to adjust, able to obtain the agreement from the other members for the gradual adaptation by stages of the equalization of tariffs and quotas. It was, therefore, that on March 2 5, 1957, the Treaty of Rome was signed to go into effect on January 1, 1958.
It was the British who again refused to partake of the benefits of a United Europe and instead created to the annoyance of the French a ramshackle free trade area made up of seven
European peripheral nations. Conflicts soon arose between the "outer seven" and "the six" such as those concerning:
...the nature and level of external tariffs, general agreements versus product by product agreements; that old devil. Imperial Preference; the place of agriculture in both systems; the nature of the majorities required to proceed from one stage to the next; and tariff reductions both between the two areas and between them and outside countries. 13
13 Purniss, France Troubled Ally, p. 261, - 45
Needless to say, the French direction relied and turned more towards her European partners and further away from dependence upon her Anglo-Sajjon allies.
The road is long and treacherous before reaching the destination of European unity, but although in future years
President de Gaulle was to frown with distaste upon this supra-national atmosphere, he was not able to shun or dismiss lightly the fruits and benefits derived from the extension of the national markets and consolidation of national industries and resources. France, nurtured on the sanctity of those invisible boundary lines, found this road more difficult than the rest of Europe, but gradually like the rest she was to acquire the benefits derived and was to play a key role in the building of a modern, united and strong Europe.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
The immobilist Fourth Republic was to face a third and more crucial trend during its tenure and this was the attrition of her Empire— beginning in the Fourth and ending in the Fifth Republic. This problem was eventually to destroy the Fourth Republic and almost destroy the Fifth; it was to begin in Southeast Asia;and end in North Africa and was to play havoc with French politics, not to mention French economic and military life. 46
What had been the role of the Empire in its relation
ship to France? Or, to put it more accurately, what had been
the role of France in its relationship to the Empire?
The Empire, which covered a large segment of territory in
Southeast Asia and Africa, meant to the French government
not necessarily economic security, for it was most generally
a drain on the French budget, but the Empire meant prestige,
grandeur, and above all power. It was during the War that
De Gaulle had said: "France has not been defeated, because
she still has an Empire of over 4,600,000 square miles, with 14 a population of 65 million."
The great problem of this Empire, strange though the word may sound, was that of self justification. France acquired her empire as a luxury, as a matter of prestige and power, not as a matter of necessity, or even u t i l i t y . 1 5
France had no sooner acquired North Africa in 1835 than she wished to rid herself of it, for it had no pragmatic utility.
She acquired territory in Southeast Asia, not as an economic
1 ^Charles de Gaulle, The Speeches of General de Gaulle (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), p. 46.
l^Luethy, op. cit., p. 213. 47 base, but as a result of the Chinese Opium wars. The only reason she scrambled for territory in sub-Saharan Africa in the late 19th century was because this was the new power status symbol of which all the European nations were partaking.
Once acquiring these power "assets" France took on the posture of helping these uncivilized underlings by a process which the French called "assimilation." While the British were building a civil service within her colonies, and while the Belgians were excluding completely the native populace in hers, the French were creating the process of assimilation by which the eventual outcome would be one hundred million
Frenchmen.
Underlying the French lay the naive and calm confidence in the human and indestructability of a nation which never aimed at racial unity, but at a cultural unity capable of assimilating all elements of human civilization.16
This assimilation process, however, was slow and inefficient, for by 1939 only a handful of natives had received French citizenship and within the territories there was no cadre created so that autonomy to the areas could eventually be given.
16Ibid.. p. 210. 48
The beginning of the end of the Empire began on the territory of Indo-Ghina in Southeast Asia. During the Opium
Wars France established a foothold there in the form of a naval trading base. The actual acquisition of that territory came after the war with China which ended with the Treaty of Tientsin in 1884. "The various segments of the South eastern extremity of Asia could be consolidated into the dependency of Indo-Ghina." France practiced her hand at assimilation virtually unhampered until the conclusion of the
Second World War and French liberation from the Germans.
During the war, however, Indo-China remained under French administration, taking orders from the Vichy government.
The Governor General, Admiral Decoux, was caught in a precarious position for he could not prevent the Japanese from using the naval bases, nor could be expect help from the British or Americans. Besides this, when he tried to institute reforms in the area, he was hampered and denounced by the Gaullists as a collaborator and traitor. With French resistance beamed at Indo-China, the Japanese attacked on
March 9, 1945.
l^Albrecht-Carrie, op. cit., p. 192. 49
Not only had the French been unable to prevent the occupation, but they were publicly humiliated by the Nipponese soldiers. In the eyes of the Vietnamese, that day the French lost their claim to sovereignty (le mandat du ciel) forever.16
The French expeditionary force that was to enter Indo-
China was ordered to re-establish control over the territory.
In the north General LeClerc was to land with the permission of Ho Chi Minh, President of the Viet Minh government at Tonkin, and the Chinese generals. General LeClerc at the conclusion of the expulsion of the Japanese was convinced that reconquest would take an army of 500,000 men. When negotiations in
Paris with Ho Chi Minh failed, the latter started hostilities on December 19, 1946.
Perhaps the only real argument at the time for the maintenance of Vietnam, and a formidable one at that, was the fact that Ho Chi Minh was a Communist, for Indo-China had not been a colony for settlers. Independence meant no serious transfer of population that was to plague the Algerian problem.
During the ensuing years when France was drained of her men and monies, the problem of retreat seemed insurmountable, for with retreat meant loss of face, prestige, and grandeur.
^6Raymond Aron, France and Europe (Hinsdale, 111.: Regnery, 1949), p. 81. 50 certainly unfitting for a country trying to regain its proper place in the world arena. Whereas America, in the beginning opposed French reoccupation of the area, after the
Korean confrontation she reversed her position to the point of materially aiding the French in Indo-China.
The war went, of course, from bad to worse. It was
General Henri Navarre who concluded:
The true reasons for the Indo-Chinese defeat are political. The first, from which almost all the others follow, is the absence of policy; from the beginning to the end our leaders never knew what they wanted; or if they did know, did not know how to get it. They never dared tell the country that there was a war in Indo-China. They did not know how to engage the nation in war, or how to make peace. They were incapable of defining a line of conduct toward the Associated States, to stick to it, and to impose it on those who repre sented France out there. They only knew how to take from day to day bastard measures always outstripped by e v e n t s . 19
With the defeat in Indo-China at Dien Bien Phu, the fall of the Laniel government, and the rise of Premier Mendes-France, the armistice with Indo-China that could have been signed in
1953 was signed in 1954. For it was in 1953 that France could have locked the Vietnam armistice with that of the
Koreans, but on account of the intransigence of Bidault that exit was blocked.
^^Furniss, op. cit., p. 175. 51
FRENCH UNION
Nationalism and the rising expectations of the masses, while effecting all the colonial powers, was hitting France
the hardest because of her fai lure to find a definite policy.
It was felt by the French government that a new form of
association had to be found and the catalyst towards this new
association had been found, it was believed, in the Brazzaville
Declaration of 1944. The Brazzaville Declaration stated that
the idea of se If-government must be dismissed, but a large measure of economic and administrative freedom would be
left to the individual territories; each state would have
limited responsibility in the direction of the affairs of
their nation. The French government had already begun the practice of admitting to administrative circles those qualified local candidates. However the higher posts were monopolized by Frenchmen, and this inflation of inferior posts
only increased the agitation of those who found this an out
let for their talents and ambitions.
As again a move towards a more liberal policy, the
French embodied in their 1946 Constitution the idea of the
French Union. The Union consisted of four categories of
territories: Metropolitan France and the overseas departments. 52 the overseas territories, the associated states, and the associated territories. Only the first two categories would have representation in the National Assembly. Needless to say, the African representatives had little if any leverage in the Assembly, receiving not only little public attention but little official concern as well. Not only was this a matter of concern for African nationalists, but also there was the fact that they were so vastly under-represented in the Assembly (38 deputies to represent 29 million people).
"By 1956,...ten years after the adoption of the constitu tion, the Fourth Republic was proposing to breathe life into the idea of territorial self government and to re-examine the 2 0 basis of political association." The reasons for this were clear: France had to liberalize her colonial policies in an effort to save what she could. Tunisia, Morocco, and Indo-
China were already independent, with rebels stirring up trouble in Algeria, and the sub-Saharan nations were "beefing up" their demands. France, to prevent another defeat and to maintain her status as a world power, with 100,000,000
Frenchmen, was determined to hang on.
^^Furniss, France. Troubled Ally, p. 175. 53
Through her Loi cadre of 1956 France liberalized her relationship to this extent: France remained responsible for only the essential services of her colonies, i.e., defense, foreign affairs, communications, finance (in all, thirty-two different services headed by the President of the
n I Governmental Council). It was during this time that the age-old assimilation concept was abandoned by the Fourth
Republic. This was not to be the end of the matter, for it would be a future president of another Republic who would eventually sever colonial ties with the Union.
NORTH AFRICA AND THE DEATH OF THE FOURTH
Tunisia went to France in 1887 as a gift from Bismarck who had ulterior motives of his own; when these motives backfired France found herself in sole possession. Morocco, as a consequence of the Algeciras Conference in 1906, went under the influence of the French; and Algeria had been under the hand of the French since the days of Charles X.
With the formation of the Arab League, pressures from the
United states and the Soviet Union for the abandonment of
21 Pickles, op. cit., p. 160. 54
European colonialism, and the education of the young oriented towards freedom and self determination, conditions deteriorated in these countries with terror and violence running rampant. With these conditions, under the govern ment of Mendes-France, Tunisia was granted internal independence,
After the fall of Mendes-Francô and the elections of July,
1956, negotiations and discussions settled the Moroccan case.
As a result, they, too, received their independence.
Algeria, the third North African bastion of French power, presented a special problem for the French government.
Whereas Tunisia and Morocco were nations which possessed a traditional life with leaders to speak for them, Algeria had never been a nation; she had always been considered an integral part of France. Algeria held a vast supply of oil needed by France and a good percentage of the population was French, and dominated the Algerian elite positions. The
Moslem Algerians, on the other hand, lived a feeble existence in a land of plenty. Privileged life that was shown to them by the French was equally refused to them; thus from this the F.L.N. was formed to carve a future for a country with no past.
The F.L.N. in the 1955 negotiations with the Socialist government in Paris demanded, first, independence and, second. 55
recognition as the head of that state. The French Army,
however, vetoed most efforts for negotiation from then on,
felling that Algeria was the last stand of French resistance
and that they could not afford another defeat as in Indo-
China.
It was in the year 1958, nevertheless, under the liberal
Pflimlin government, that negotiations were considered for
the settlement of the Algerian dispute. The French Algerian
Army, objecting savagely to any proposal contemplating the
loss of Algeria, was on the verge of creating civil war when
General de Gaulle re-entered the French drama. It was
President Coty who called upon De Gaulle €o form a new govern ment, and it was General de Gaulle who anxiously, but patiently
accepted, ^t was De Gaulle's wish that a new constitution be drawn, for he would never have served under the Fourth
Republic which he despised.
Thus we observed Algeria, intertwined with the domestic politics of the French nation, destroy a Constitution.
General de Gaulle allayed the fears of the military rebels
in Algeria by being evasive on the issue of Algerian settle ment.' De Gaulle's support came mainly from the center and
the right in the Assetnbly, and was indeed claiming the mandate 56 of the French people. By his political and persuasive maneuverings, he averted civil war, diverted France from the stagnant Fourth Republic, and was about to again elevate the French image as being a great power.
It is true that the Fourth Republic had much to be desired, and that it is almost sadistic to think that France had to be saddled with this “white elephant" in the most dynaraicly changing period in her history, except for the era of 1789. However, one must see that the Fourth Republic did accomplish a relative amount during its tenure. From her chambers were produced European and Atlantic integration and cooperation, liberalization of her colonial policy, and the advancement of her economy.
We can see during this time the development of some general trends of French foreign policy. We have seen that from the conclusion of the Second World War France moved from virtual mistrust of her Germanic neighbor to outright collaboration and integration. This indeed would be toarried out with emphasis, as I shall illustrate, into the Fifth
Republic, We have seen the steady growth of nationalism within the French colonies in which the Fourth Republic, facing the realities of the moment, had to cope. Under the
Fifth Republic we shall see the end results of this situation. 57
We have seen the Fourth Republic take note of the progress that a solid Europe can make in both economics and defense. Although the future President de Gaulle views this progress with mistrust, he will do relatively little to alter the existing situation, even though he will resist its going any further.
French economic, military, and social resources as organized and supervised by the political institutions of the Fourth Republic [were] inadequate for the attainment of the position in the international setting which French leaders claim for France and which American statesmen, concerned with the defense of Western Europe against Soviet expansionism, have up to now believed France could within a reasonable period of time attain.
It was to be up to the Fifth Republic as to whether this situ ation would be altered.
22Purniss, France ; Keystone. p. 67. CHAPTER III
RICHLIEU
To discuss the foundations, prospects, and objectives
of the Fifth French Republic, one does not necessarily talk
about the government of the Fifth Republic, but one talks
of M. Charles de Gaulle. It is said that "when General
de Gaulle wants to consult a map of France, he looks in his mirror. He is a man brought up and super-saturated in
French history and culture, in the sovereignty of French boundaries, traditions and prerogatives aware of French
national interests and dangers, and steeped in the attitude
towards protecting everything connected with la belle France.
Charles de Gaulle was born at Lille, France, on
November 22, 1890. His father was a frugal professor of philosophy, mathematics and literature, and he himself had been brought up with that which typifies the military mind, for he had fought with distinction in the Franco-Prussian War.
^Stanley Clark, The Man Who Is France (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963), p. 15, 59
Charles was brought up in an atmosphere of frugality, religion, past family history, and military learning.
Many a story was fed to him by his parents of his ancestors such as Jean Baptiste of 1789, who remained loyal to the crown of France; to Julien Philippe de Gaulle and as far back as Jean de Gaulle of 1414. It is no wonder the seventy- four year old President of France today considers so strongly that his France rises so far above the rest of the world and seeks to enhance her as a great lever in international affairs.
It was his military career, not political, that brought him to meet his destiny in France. As a graduate with distinction from the Ecole Militaire of St. Cyr, he served in the 33rd infantry during World War I under Colonel Philippe
Petain, a man who eventually in the history of France
De Gaulle would call "traitor." It was between the wars that De Gaulle, of phenomenal intellectual capabilities, would urge the military with little success to promote mobile tanks and aircraft rather than immobile fortresses.
It was during and after the Second World War that
General de Gaulle began formulating his attitudes towards the international arena and perhaps even his own political ambitions. His distrust of his Anglo-Saxon allies stemmed 60 from his being excluded from British-American talks over the European and African campaign and from his exclusion from the conferences of Yalta and Potsdam in 1945. As has been mentioned in the last chapter. De Gaulle felt that
France as a great power (even though temporarily disabled) had a right by heredity to take part in discussions regarding international affairs, particularly when they concerned Europe
It is evident that as time went on the Americans and British were aware of the key position of France and her importance in t'le creation of a strong Europe.
De Gaulle, like the rest of his countrymen, had an overt distrust for France's Germanic neighbor to the East, but again like the rest of his countrymen felt that attempts at depriving Germany of a place on the international scene, being futile, an integrated Germany within Europe would be the next best thing towards controlling a dynamic and potentially dangerous nation.
European integration was claimed by De Gaulle, during his absence from active participation in the French govern ment until 1958, as dangerous to the sovereignty of the
French nation. Indeed, he declared and still does, that a supra-national body performs somewhat satisfactorily when faced with routine functional duties; however, when faced 61 with a basic, real problem, which would genuinely affect national economies, then he says this supra-national body dissolves. As I shall illustrate later. De Gaulle sees only too clearly the benefits derived from oganizations such as the E.E.C. and E.C.S.C.
It is interesting to note that although De Gaulle claims great power status Æôr his nation and aims for its develop ment, he guides France, as will later be seen, as a secondary power. For "a secondary power feeds and grows on a spate of relative successes against her peers or superiors; great power derives confidence only by maintaining of improving positions vis a vis its established rivals.
Charles de Gaulle, nevertheless, would follow the old
Richelieu pattern of treating the world as it actually is, facing and examining the realities of international politics, discarding what is obsolescent and obtaining that which will be the most beneficial towards the fulfillment of the national interest.
It was in the year 1946, when De Gaulle was rebuffed by the impotent Fourth Republic, that he made the following statement:
2 George Kelly, "The French Restoration of History," Orbis, VIII, No. 3 (Fall, 1964), p. 652. 62
There are two conceptions of government and they cannot be reconciled. Do you want a government that governs or an omnipotent Assembly that sets up a government only to carry out its wishes? The obvious formula in my opinion is that of a government that assumes alone, I repeat, alone, the whole responsibility of the executive power.... If the Assembly refuses all or some of the means the government considers necessary to carry out the responsi bility of the executive power, well then the government resigns.^
It was with this in mind that De Gaulle took over the reigns of France in 1958.
CHARLES DE GAULLE AND THE FIFTH REPUBLIC
Dorothy Pickles, in her book The Fifth French Republic, cites four circumstances which enabled General de Gaulle to assume control: the first being the apathy of the French leaders to save the Fourth Republic, the second being the
"Transformation of the Algiers demonstration into a movement in which settlers and army leaders in Algeria combined to demand a Government of Public Safety, headed by General de
Gaulle— a movement which, as the time went on, won growing support in France."^ A third circumstance was De Gaulle
^Roy Macridis, The De Gaulle Republic, the Quest for Unity (Homewood, Illinois: Dorsey Press, 1960), p. 148. 4 Pickles, op. cit., p. 17. 63 himself. As a hero of the Second World War, he already held wide support from the French populace, and during May of 1958 he expressed his opinion to the French of his "willingness"
to assume the powers of the Republic by legal means, whose goal would be to establish "a Republican Government capable
of ensuring the unity and independence of the country."^
The fourth and final circumstance or obstacle was the
importance of the French Parliament which was virtually in control of the Fourth Republic, and having, indeed, omnipotent powers.
The persuasion of the presiding President of the Republic,
Coty, the investiture debate of the French Assembly, and the
guarantees by De Gaulle that the new government (or Republic) would guarantee universal suffrage, responsibility of the government to Parliament, separation of legislative and executive powers, independence of the judiciary, and the possibility of organizing relations between the Republic and
the associated peoples, created for De Gaulle the opportunity
for the assumption of control. De Gaulle received from the
Assembly special powers to rule by decree for six months and
5lbid., p. 21. 64 during this time to create a new republic for France.
De Gaulle was placed into office by the Assembly with a vote of 329 to 224 with 32 abstentions.^
It was important for De Gaulle to alienate few in his quest for authority and to do this he used a method of vagueness. A perfect example of this was in relation to the Algerian problem. It was important for him at the time not to alienate nor isolate the "plotters" in Algeria who were extremely vociferous towards tying Algeria closer to France, yet he could not at this early date commit himself to an
Algerian policy just in case it could or would not reach fruition. This is important due to the fact that his prestige and invulnerability were such key factors towards his position in France. So, therefore, on June 4th he stated to them;
I have understood you. I know what happened here. I see what you wanted to do. I see that the road you have opened is the road to renewal and brotherhood.?
From this ambiguity, came De Gaulle's freedom of movement and maneuver; he offended neither the ultras of whom there were those who wished Algerian integration, nor those wishing an autonomous Algeria.
6 Ibid.. Chapter II, "Preclude to the Fifth Republic," pp. 15-25.
^Furniss, France, Troubled Ally, p. 347. 65
Beginning on June 4th, De Gaulle had virtually
dictatorial powers within Prance, his main objective being
the formation or elaboration of a new Constitution. It was
from this point that De Gaulle began the greatest phase of
his life— through patience and calm he took over the govern
ment without bloodshed or civil war.® The Fourth Republic with its 25 cabinets and 17 Presidents of the Council was
dead and France was preparing to accept a new government with
strong executive leadership.
A discussion, even a general one, of the organization
of the government with its political parties, electoral
system, and detailed functions, is not necessarily relevant
at this point; however, several Presidential powers would prove interesting in the light of present-day decision making
on the part of President De Gaulle.
The President of the new Republic holds vastly more power than his predecessors had in that it is he and not the
Prime Minister or Premier or the National Assembly who
directly guides the nation. It is true that he acts with the
concurrence and on the initiative of the Prime Minister, but under the De Gaulle regime the Premier (Debre, now Pompidou)
Sclark, op. cit., p. 10. 66 receives the signals from the President.
In foreign policy the President now can negotiate treaties, "whereas under the previous Constitution he was 9 merely kept informed of the negotiations." This can be a » prime instrument, particularly when the President holds vast support and is not directly responsible to 'the National
Assembly.
This brings me to a second point in that the President is politically irresponsible for acts carried out by him
"in pursuance of his functions."^® This was true of his predecessors, but the present President does not preside, but governs and "can exercise some degree of real power, and who, in an emergency, has the right to almost unlimited power.
Perhaps the most controversial of the articles of the
Constitution was that of the emergency powers allotted to the President in case of national emergency. During such a time, the President of the Republic must inform the nation, consult the Prime Minister, the Presidents of the Assemblies and the Constitutional Council and then take the necessary
^Pickles, op. cit., p. 133.
^°Ibid.
^^Ibid. 67 12 measures dictated by the circumstances. This, needless to say, could easily lead to a legal coup d'etat with the
President, whomever it would be at the time, taking control over the nation and ruling by decree.
To add further to the status of the Presidency, the
President is not directly elected by the legislature. An electoral college composed of the Parliament, representatives of the Overseas Territories, mayors, and municipal councilors, with membership around 70,000, elects the President of the
Republic for a period of seven years.
There are deficiencies and dangers within the new
Constitution such as the possibility of an over ambitious
President assuming command, or for fear of an over zealous executive. But, on the whole, a strong workable rational executive seems to be the only efficiently workable government that the French can tolerate. Indeed, the French are a factious people with forty million individual minds running the country. With this, one would obviously need strong unitary leadership at the time to guide one nation of forty million individuals. Even if the Fifth Republic is abandoned for a Sixth after the passing of De Gaulle, most are convinced
^^Ibid., p. 147. 68
that France will never return to the Fourth.
With this backing— a strong government, popular support,
intellectual astuteness and certainly honest national pride.
President De Gaulle has to excel in producing for his country
a remarkable personal technique in carrying out French foreign
policy. De Gaulle being an empiricist in striving for world power, has less binding ideological commitments to
any one view of the future of the glove.He has found that history is the world's best guide, for unlike theory which presents the success or failure dualism, history offers
alternatives.President de Gaulle was to know the goals
and objectives for which he was striving— from history, and
from the objective realities inherent within France as a major voice and power in international affairs.
During his tenure of office up to the present time.
President de Gaulle was to dissolve with patience and
tenacity the problem of Algeria which caused the fall of many governments within the Fourth Republic, climaxing with
the Republic itself. He was to see and participate in
the attrition of the French Community and salvage what he
^^Kelly, op. cit., pp. 641-6 54.
l^ibid.. p. 651. 69 could for France by way of prestige and trade. He was and is challenging the Anglo-Saxon leaders of the N.A.T.O. alliance with his concept of French power and position within the world construct, along with challenging obsolescent, out-dated Cold War policies vociferously espoused by the
United States. He was to begin the movement away from these traditional Cold War policies by facing the reality of international intercourse with nations of Communist economies, and therefore receiving the fruits of trade and negotiation.
He was to build up through promises, threats, treaties and agreements an intricate yet simply woven array of political positions relative with the major powers of the world in which France proves indispensable. This is what a new dynamic France was to face when all ninty departments of
France voted "Yes" to the new Constitution on September 28,
1958.
DE- GAULLE AND ALGERIA
It was Algeria that presented itself with full force as a major problem for De Gaulle. It was true that the provisional government which was formed in Algeria during the expiring days of the Fourth Republic supported General 70 de Gaulle in order to keep the military in its proper place, not only on the Algerian question but also in its vastly subordinate role to the civilian government in Paris.
Edgar Purniss in his book, France, Troubled Ally, sets up six prerequisites regarding Algeria that the President of the Fifth Republic had to adhere to during the beginning of his tenure. First, the Committees of Public Safety within
Algeria, which had earlier defied the Pflimlin government of the Fourth Republic, had to be weakened and guided along
the views of De Gaulle; The French army in Algeria had to be placed beneath the command of the Paris government;
all the Algerians had to endorse the Fifth Republic, thus remaining loyal; and fourth, enticement or "neutralization" of the nationalist movement within Algeria had to manifest
itself. Bourguiba of Tunisia, a close neighbor of Algeria, had to be persuaded not to participate in aiding the Algerian nationalists, hence a workable agreement had to be constructed;
and lastly, popular support in France of De Gaulle's Fifth 15 Republic had to be renewed.
Because of the popularity of De Gaulle, the Committee
of Public Safety was in eclipse by September, 1958, for
ISpurniss, France, Troubled Ally, pp. 423-424. 71 De G|ulle had earlier defied the early demands of the
Committee by subjecting them to the will of the executive of the Republic. With De Gaulle's appeal to the public they could do no more than remain silent.
The Army was brought back into line and away from the
Committees by means of additional funds to the budget, the returning to France and to positions of governmental respectability of the most vociferous of those advocates of
Algerian integration and governmental disobedience, and by outlining the armies duties which was "to maintain order and defend Moslem groups against nationalist terror.
In relation to the question of the absolute status of the Algerian "nation, " De Gaulle found it necessary to placate both the Algerian nationalists and the European advocates of integration. In doing so he suggested before the elections to the National Assembly that Algeria would have a personality and character of its own, meaning that
Algeria would have limited self-government. This liberal policy in Algeria was to be a gamble, in the hope of making Algeria friendly and responsible to French policy
^^Ibid.. p. 426. 72 directions.
Diplomatie contact with the Tunisian government was restored on June 13 after they had been broken earlier because of the French attack on Sakiet the preceding February,
Sakiet being an Algerian rebel base located on Tunisian soil.
France was going to withdraw her forces from Tunisian soil, the French government would recognize the French base of
Bizerte as being under the sovereignty of the nation of
Tunisia, and in return Bourguiba gave France permission "to construct a pipeline from the Saharan oil field of Edjele 1 O to El Skhira, near Gabes."
De Gaulle's policies, however, soon ran amock, for one year later France was again faced with an impasse in regard
to the Algerian problem. The Algerian nationalists became
unified in their demands. Bourguiba turned away from concilia
tion becatise of Algerian-Tunisian border violations and the exploitation of French landholders within Tunisia, and extremists in Algeria dominated the elections to the National
Assembly. It must be mentioned also that De Gaulle had to
^^G. L. Arnold, "Beyond the Fifth Republic," Twentieth Century, CLXVII (March, 1960), p. 2 00. 18 Furniss, France, Troubled Ally, p. 469. 73 contend with rebellious army and civilian groups who advocated Algerian integration. He also had to contend with outside interference in the Algerian problem to which
De Gaulle had claimed to be an internal affair. The United
States, fearing Communist influence in the area via Tunisia and Algerian nationalists (F.L.N.), and Russian officials envisioning favorable developments in their favor, presented
De Gaulle with the fait accompli that Algeria was indeed considerably more than just an internal squabble.
Liberalizing even more his approach to the Algerian question. De Gaulle after fifteen months in office with the
Algerian problem finding no base solution and tensions mounting higher, announced his plan for Algerian self- determination. The Algerians were offered three choices: integration, secession, and independence with association with France, the latter being the most favored by the French
President.This plan, needless to say, led to the second
insurrection of army commanders within Algeria on the 24th of January, 1960 ("revolt of the barricades"). Because of
De Gaulle ' s strong popular appeal and a more secure position for himself since 1953, the abortive rebellion was brought
under control within a week.
^^Pickles, op. cit., p. 173 74
De Gaulle announced that a referendum would take place to confirm his plan for a provisional executive in
Algeria preceding the vote for self-determination. De Gaulle received the backing of the French people with 75% of tlœ people voting for his proposals. It was on December 29th, that he announced that during the beginning of 1962 French army and air force units would be withdrawn from Algeria.
Negotiations had begun in 1959 with the P.L.N. leaders, but were periodically abandoned because of the intransigence on the part of the French and nationalists, but in 1961 the negotiations were resumed with the result of a cease-fire by an agreement of March 19th, 1962. These negotiations were complicated in turn by vociferous army generals within
Algeria stirring revolt against the Paris government; terrorists attacks, and the beginning growth of an actual race hatred within Algeria.^0
The agreement, besides guaranteeing a cease-fire, also
included that France would retain the use of the base at
Mer-el-Kebir for fifteen years, French and Algerian adminis
trators would share in administrating the country, Algeria
^°Ibid. p. 178. 75 was recognized as a sovereign state with guaranteed
French aid, and oil interests were to be shared with French prospectors having priority.
Thus with 91% of the electorate voting for independence, the President of the Republic proclaimed Algeria independent on July 3, 1962. Thus Algeria, as Indo-China, went the path of independence. President de Gaulle realizing that the
Algerian problem could never be solved until Algeria was independent, took the gamble, hoping for association, swallowed his nationalist pride, liberalized his policy, and set
Algeria afloat.
DE GAULLE AND L'AFRIQUE NOME
Algeria, as was Tunisia and Morocco, being a part of the
French Community represented a further withering of the old
French empire. Algeria was, however, a separate and distinct problem with its own special characteristics and concerns— a distinct entity unto itself, whereas another stronghold of
French colonialism— sub-Saharan Africa was quite another concern of the same French dilemma, i.e., the attrition of the French empire. 76
L'Afrique Noire has been for France, no less than
for De Gaulle, a symbol of French greatness, with the fall of France in 1940, it was asserted by De Gaulle that France had a vast empire behind her so she was not really alone.
The tri-color of France flew over four and one-half million square miles of lands, filled with resources and millions of men. At the conclusion of the war, the General perhaps realized that the very people who aided France to attain her freedom would perhaps be demanding freedom for themselves someday.
However, it was still too early to consider this seri ously and thus the French leaders clung to that old idea of the assimilation of the peoples of the Empire into the French political and social culture, France's Empire, south of the
Sahara, consisted of French Equatorial Africa (Gabon, Congo,
Chad and the Central African Republic); French West Africa
(Niger, Dahomey, Upper Volta, Ivory Coast, Mali, Senegal,
Mauritania, and Guinea), and the trusteeships left to France by the United Nations of Togo land and the Cameroon. To further the trend of assimilation, there was incorporated within the constitution of the Fourth Republic the abolishing of any distinction between French citizens and French subjects 77
•The French proceeded with the process of assimilation by means of the inclusion of 83 overseas deputies in the
National Assembly and 71 senators in the Council of the
Republic. It was in 1956 that the loi-cadre was passed by
Fourth Republic which introduced universal suffrage on a single electoral roll and transferred many functions of administration to the native population. The loi-cadre was never really instituted during the life of the Fourth Republic,
When De Gaulle came to power the position of the African nations vis a vis France was in decay. With the independence of Tunisia and Morocco, the wave of nationalism spreading throughout Africa, the British sanctioning independence to her colonies. De Gaulle summarily bbandoned the obsolete, malfunctioning assimilation process and tried to accomplish two objectives to maintain French advantages in the area: the first was to legislate himself a French commonwealth via the French Community and if this failed,to promote French association via complete autonomy by the member states.
President De Gaulle satisfied the nationalist demands where the Fourth Republic had failed by instituting the
French Community to replace the French Union of the Fourth
Republic. The new Constitution of the Community established 78 an Executive Council and a Senate, the President of France presiding over the Council.
The Senate is to have representatives from the French and other legislatures in a number determined according to each state's population and the responsibilities it assumes in the Community. The Senate is to deliberate on Com munity economic and financial matters, examine international agreements involving the Community, and make executory decisions if authorized to do so by the various legislatures.21
Foreign policy, defense, the monetary system, common economic and financial policy and strategic raw materials were placed
in the jurisdiction of the Community. It was also held that any member could withdraw at any time "at their own risk and peril" and that the Constitution would be decided by a
referendum.
From the referendum each of the African states voted
for the establishment of the Community giving each African
nation some autonomy and voice in the affairs of their
respective governments than ever before. Only Sekou Toure's
French Guinea voted "No" and thus began down the road of
independence. This move by Toure was extremely significant,
for it mot only plaâêd the French in a difficult dilemma
Zlpurniss, op. cit., p. 441. 79 in regard to aid to that country vis a vis the members of the Community, but also, if Guinea succeeded on its own it would set a good example for the rest of the French
Community.
Another threat to the "harmony" of the Community was that of the federations of African states, especially espoused by Toure himself. This prospect, catching fire within Africa, led to virtually swift independence for the French Community: first, with the federation of Mali in September 1959; in
December, Madagascar and soon during the course of the year of 196 0 all eleven Community members aceded to independence.
It was now the time since the empire had dissolved, for
President de Gaulle to salvage what he could by associating
France with her old colonies thus retaining French position as a major voice in African affairs and withholding her interests in African resources. To do this De Gaulle revised the Constitution to make independence compatible with membership within the Community. All of the twelve states adhered to certain agreements with France for cooperation on a number of fields and areas, but only half remained with the Community. Cooperation follows lines of foreign policy, economic and financial policy and higher education. All of 80 the states receive some aid from France and preferential treatment for their goods and markets, and each of the states have renewed to some extent their agreements with the Common Market countries.
Herbert Spiro, in Politics of Africa, notes that the future of the Community if not vague is imprecise and unpre dictable. He notes French aloofness towards the African
"cause" noted particularly in De Gaulle's contempt for the 22 United Nations of which the Afro-Asian bloc are in the majority.
The fact that French nuclear weapons were tested in the Sahara over African protests and the French demand to retain control over the oil and mineral rich part of Algeria led to African quarrels within the Community as well as without.
The Community at the present time is an imprecise entity which can play no real major role in President de Gaulle's conception of "greater" France. Needless to say,
France had played a great part in the molding of character
of her former French colonies and that she will do so in the
future by means of advisory or financial aid. But it is evi
dent and with reluctance that de Gaulle could not sweep
2 2 Herbert Spiro, Politics of Africa (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1962), pp. 132-145. 81 away the hand of reality, or history, particularly when supported by what one could terra a less than powerful nation who could ill afford wars of attrition such as that of
Indo-China and Algeria. France at this time has never been so free to maneuver internationally vis a vis her colonies, and she has never had to sacrifice so little to her colonies as of now, and she has at no time received more for so little from her colonies as of now. Can a critic of De Gaulle’s colonial policy find any real base for criticism?
DE GAULLE AND EUROPE
It would be accurate to say that Gaullism stands and falls on the conception of France retaining her position as a great power. This retention is based (or was based) on two concepts: that of the French empire with 100,000,000 Frenchmen and on French dominance (or prominence) over the European
Continent. With the Empire reaching the point of diminishing returns in relation to French greatness (la grandeur) France was naturally to turn towards Europe which, as a result, has borne multiple fruits for the French nation via De Gaullist foreign policy.
During the process of De Gaulle's accession to power,
i.e., from 1944 til 1958, Charles de Gaulle traversed three 82 schemes of thought in order to maintain an equilibirum of forces within Europe. The first, espoused during the war, was to have a string of buffer states in Central Europe, leaving the then feared Germany dismembered as it is today.
This naturally failed because of allied pressure towards creating a strong Germany and a policy aimed at the withdrawal of Russia from the countries of Central Europe. The second plan was for a Franco-British combination acting together independently with their far flung Empires to sway the balance between the East and West. This, as we have already seen, failed because of British adherence to American policies and the dissolution of British and French colonial status.
The third short-lived plan was that of sole mediator between the East and West, which seemed to bear fruit with the Franco-
Soviet Treaty of 1944. With the solidification of the Cold
War policies and the exclusion of France from any conciliating gestures on the part of the Soviet Union, this pact quickly dissipated.
With these three plans each approached and each thwarted due to international circumstances. De Gaulle rested his and his country's fate on a fourth plan, on which he is concentrating today: a Third Force— Europe. As has been 83 mentioned earlier, since 1949 the countries of Europe, particularly the Six (Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Germany), have found fruit in federated
European schemes of which the E.E.C. and Euratom have, up to the present time, become the end result. During the years when De Gaulle was out of office, he was extremely distainful of European integration efforts and particularly arbitrary on the E.E.C. when it came into effect on January 1, 1958.
It was then thought by the powers in Europe that when De Gaulle came to power, he would either completely withdraw from the
Community or weaken it to the point of impotency.
When De Gaulle did come to power he did neither. For, suspicious of supra-national power (which as embodied in the
E.E.C. and .E.C.S.C. ) as he was, he saw the economic advantages of the Community and the need not to antagonize European movements and forces within his own country. What he did do, or is trying to do up to this time, is to twist the Community instead ofsinto-being a European body, into being an old- fashioned alliance of cooperation between the states under
French hegemony. Factor to this conclusion stem from his opposition to rendering ideas of strengthening the Community, by opposing any idea of a European political force and of even 84 replacing the European Hirsch as the President of Euratom with a man of more "nationalistic" tendencies.23
There is, however, common ground between the Gaullists, favoring moderation if not dissolution of the integration movement, and the European elements within France. Both are content with the vast industrial changes and new business combinations that the Common Market has brought France.
It is unfortunate that the common ground ends here, for whereas the Europeans feel that the Commission of the E.E.C. has greater possibilities towards economic integration of the six members of the Community; the Gaullists accept the
Commission as what they see it to be, an instrument for getting governments to work together.
The President's proposals during the first years of his office lent to the scheme of mitigating the effect of the
Common Market and lending itself to the sanctity of action of the individual states on which De Gaulle bases his foreign policy. He proposed that the heads of states regularly consult, that under the control of governments special organs should be established which are to co-ordinate policy on a
2 3 John Finder, Europe Against De Gaulle (New York; Praeger, 1963). 85
"less technical" level apart from the co-ordination lent to the E.E.C. Commission. He also proposed that a European
Assembly be set up of members from the individual Parliaments of Europe (duplication of the already existent Common
Assembly)
In essence De Gaulle's proposals were embodied in the
Pouchet Plans of 1961. These plans met much resistance with the Benelux countries and were cooly accepted by the Government of Germany. The main reasons for this tempered reception was that the plans would generally place an obstacle in the path of Britain if that country ever wished to participate in the E.E.C.
De Gaulle, on the issue of participation of Britain in the Common Market, seemed non-committal. He simply referred to the matter by saying that new members could only be admitted to the Common Market with the unanimous consent of the governments involved, and not by the consent of the
Council of the E.E.C. This indeed strengthened the national approach at the expense of the supra-national organization.
The President saw that he was a key point within the
Community and therefore took advantage of it. Fearing British
^^Pickels, op. cit., p. 193. 86
rivalry on the Continent, not to mention the latent mis
trust of British objectives possibly to destroy the European economic progress. De Gaulle sought to exclude Britain and her Commonwealth from the Common Market. Britain had during
the course of the European movement vacillated between
supporting and harrassing integration schemes. Peeling that
the integration movement would never succeed and feeling that
the Genmen Market was nothing but a system of double discrimi nation by France, the British naturally refused to become a member when asked during the formative years of the treaties.
However, when the Treaties of Rome were passed in 1957, and
the French removed its quotas in 1958 from 90% of its 1948
imports, the British interest under the Conservative govern ment was rekindled.
The eventual outcome was the protracted negotiations between the Common Market countries and Britain over her entry into the Community of the Six. When it seemed as if every obstacle barring the British entry into the E.E.C. was removed, the President of France imposed a "diktat" upon
Brussels by unilaterally vetoing British membership in the
Common Market on January 29, 1963.
The repercussions from this veto not only affected
Britain, but also the rest of the member countries of the 87
Community, for by unilaterally vetoing British entry
France removed from the Six mutual trust and consolidation that was supposedly manifest within the Community. What developed was "a conflict between chauvinism and the methods 2 5 of international democracy." The main argument against
France was her obvious attempt to impose her hegemony over the European Community. For, as Professor Hallstein affirmed after the President's veto of Britain: "The Community system, the constitution of the Community, is of itself a negation of any hegemony, the organized and methodical rebuttal of hegemony.
At the tiu.e the member capitals were astir over the situation imposed upon them by their French colleague; however, this stir was nevertheless quickly abated for several reasons. First was the fact that nothing could be done about the situation, since France truly was a key to the Common
Market; secondly, the Common Market had already rapidly developed to the point of exercising dynamic effects upon the economies of Europe, and lastly, Britain would nevertheless
2 5pinder, op. cit., p. 4.
^^Ibid., p. 8. 88 participate in discussions for a wider Europe until the time when she would again be considered to be an integral part of the Europe of the Six.
DE GAULLE AND GERMANY
It was Jean Monnet who said, "Nous ne coalisons pas des états, nous unissons des hommes," 2 7 and in regard to France and Germany, "Faire l'Europe, c'est faire la paix."^® Robert
Schumann speaking in the same vein said, "The solidarity in production thus established will make it plain that any war between France and Germany becomes not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible. "29 There was also the factor that
De Gaulle recognized that to maintain a strong France in a strong Europe with French security, meant closer ties with the old French foe of Germany. Both President de Gaulle and
Chancellor Adenauer found common interests when Adenauer had visited with De Gaulle at Colombey (the old post-war retreat of De Gaulle X- Whereas Adenauer promised to support
^^Ibid., p. 11.
^^Ibid., p. 8.
^^Ibid.. p. 7. 89
De Gaulle in his discussions with the British over the letter's entry into the Common Market and against close E.E.C. association with the Free Trade Area which the British had established as a counterpart to the Common Market, France promised to uphold the French commitment over the divided siutation of Germany and Berlin.
On March 2 5, 1959, De Gaulle at a press conference said:
Germany threatens us in no way.... France and Germany are determined to coope rate.. .We shall therefore, support nothing which can push the German people to despair, compromise their peaceful future, or ruin the hopes which after so many shocks and fears have been raised on both sides of the Rhine.
De Gaulle was thus convinced, again relying upon his Third
Force concept, that Franco-German relations were more important than those of Franco-British.
Chancellor Adenauer was caught in the middle however.
With the Treaty of co-operation between the Germans and the
French of January 22, 1953, while the French expected the
German's due support of French policies in regard to a French nuclear deterrent and policies towards United states forces in Europe, the Germans (the Bundestag) gave the treaty an
^^Clark, op. cit., p. 228. 90
Atlantic interpretation embodied in the preamble by saying that the treaty by no means guaranteed a Bonn-Paris Axis to provoke the governments of Europe and the United states.
It was Adenauer, knowing quite well the importance of the presence of American forces in Germany because of her divided existence not to mention the psychological value, who made it clear to De Gaulle that he was favorably bent towards United
States forces in Europe vis a vis de Gaulle's distinct opposi tion. This most obvious clash bears fruit during French relations with Eastern Europe, over common grain prices within the Common Market, and more particularly over French opposition and German advocacy over the Multi-Lateral Nuclear
Force proposal of the United States (M.L.F.) of which I shall speak summarily.
DE GAULLE AND THE EAST
The French government was perhaps the first to shed its
Cold War preconceptions vis a vis the Communist world. As mentioned earlier. De Gaulle holds few ideological conceptions and indeed most Europeans feel as De Gaulle, that present ideological leanings are merely transitory and that the test of the state lies not in its virtue, but in its capacity for 91 self-mastery or nationhood. With this in mind plus the fact of the French conception of France as meeting her destiny within the world construct, one does not have to wonder why the French governments tend towards conciliation with enemies pronounced and defined by Washington.
This process, although beginning with De Gaulle and
Bidault's trip to the Soviet Union in 1944, actually developed during the mid- and late-Fifties when trade and economic cooperation developed with the Soviet Union. The Soviet
Union being in fact a powerful and seemingly dynamic dichotomy of potent economic force and overt Communist inclinations presented, it seemed to France, a vital area of trade for
French industries. It was also felt that with this cooperation
France could not only maneuver perhaps into a mediating role, but also in the long run regain her status as a key between between East and West. France adhered to the policy, for the German's sake, of advocating a German settlement, but
De Gaulle never solidified his claims as not to antagonize the Soviet Union. De Gaulle, therefore, always presenting himself as a "go between"— not abandoning the Germans, yet not condemning the Russians. In support of the German cause of unification. De Gaulle felt that a bargaining point> could be the German acceptance of the Oder-Neisse line as 92 the German Eastern border. De Gaulle feels that the absence of German nuclear weapons could place them (the Germans) in a detached world view; however, she would not necessarily be neutral needing the protection of the Atlantic Alliance
(thus pacifying the Americans and the Germans, along with the
Soviet Union).
Thus De Gaulle, being somewhat of an old-school realist, feels that cooperation between East and West is essential; few can argue this point. It was on his visit to the United
States and Canada that De Gaulle forecast a detente between the East and West, and it was he who led in discussions with
Premier Krushchev in the year 1960 upon the letter's visit to
Paris.
This love—hate duet of the superpowers, as claimed from
Paris, is played against the rising disharmony of the secondary 31 nations led by France and Red China. France, thus contending against her ally the United States; as Red China contending against her ally the Soviet Union. It is therefore inter esting that the French government under De Gaulle would be the first of the Western allies to extend diplomatic relations towards a nation which has been militaristically determined to crush the imperialists led by the United States. It is even more interesting that the government of Mao Tse Tung 93 of mainland china would reciprocate by extending relations
to a nation in which she is determined to destroy along with
the rest of the capitalist world.
It is felt in the government of France that the Mao Tse
Tung government of Peiping is not only the de facto government
of the Asian continent, but the de iure government as well.
Peiping opens up a variety of new market for French goods as well as possible imports. China, on the other hand, feels
that reciprocating recognition removes another barrier to her isolation in the world of the major powers, not to mention
the credits and trade much needed by China from France.
France would also mean another vote, maybe more, for her
admittqnce into the United Nations. This latter point has
already been proposed by De Gaulle who feels that the Security
Council should be made up of the five nuclear powers of the world (with Red China as one of these five).
This is another aspect of how and why President de Gaulle
is challenging the obsolescent Cold War policies of the
United States. He feels that by only bringing China into world public opinion, into dicussion and negotiation, will
the vibrant will of the Chinese Republic be tempered;
like so many policies of the United States, De Gaulle feels 94 that non-recognition and uninvolvement in the affair will not make the problem disappear.
Although David Schoenbrun has said that France has learned very little from the past, she indeed learned a great deal from Ihdo-China, i.e., even though defeated, make the best of it. And thus, France profited through extensive trade and investment with a man who a few years earlier had
French forces surrounded at Dien Bien Phu— Ho Chi Minh.
However, when the j^rench moved out the unfortunate United
States, repulsed at French withdrawal, moved in and has stayed there ever since; and is at the present time, as Breac&nev of the Soviet Union has said, digging a hole deeper and deeper from which she will never get out. De Gaulle, unlike the officials of the United States, has found that Ho Chi Minh has been a relatively reliable ally in South East Asia, protecting French interests in the area and behaving quite amicably towards the present French government. With
French interests threatened in the area, it is no wonder
De Gaulle is calling for a quick negotiated peace, or at least a cease-fire. France, if no other country, has
32 David Schoenbrun, As France Goes (New York: Harper, 1957), p. 19. 95
learned from the dilemmas involved in war in South East
Asia,as Britain is now learning in Malaysia, Feeling that
she has attained a somewhat medial place in the affair, she
can well afford with her experience in the matter and major
interests in the area, to promote methods and suggestions for
a settlement of the war.
DE GAULLE AND THE ANGLO-SAXONS
' United States-French difficultires held their roots
in the early post-World War II years, the era of overt distrust
of the Anglo-Saxon allies by France. This distrust was given
further credence by French exclusion from Anglo-Saxon
conferences. United States nuclear policies, exclusions of
the French from high directorate positions in the N.A.T.O.
structure, and perhaps the most basic, the reluctance of the
United States to acquiesce towards French desires of la
grandeur.
No sooner had President De Gaulle assumed Office when he began extricating France from the problem that plagued
the Fourth Republic, that of not retaining an equal voice
among the powers in the N.A.T.O. alliance. De Gaulle being
convinced of the necessity of overhauling the alliance to
meet with present conditions, as well as France being a major 96
voice in the revamping of the N.A.T.O. machinery,
drafted three letters (memoranda) of somewhat surreptitious
content, to Prime Minister Macmillan, President Eisenhower,
and to Belgium's Paul Henri Spaak. In essence De Gaulle was asking that France be considered as a member of the
elite power structure within the alliance: for a three power
directorate, as France being one of the three; allied
commands for all three theaters of operation, and for joint
deliberation and decisions in use of atomic weapons.When
these memoranda fell on deft ears. De Gaulle with quick
decision withdrew his Mediterranean units of the French fleet
from N.A.T.O, command, balked at the United States launching
sites in France, and demanded N.A.T.O. support for his moves
in Algeria.
A major voice in N.A.T.O. was not the only complaint expressed by the President of France: he first felt that
there was a definite weakness in the conventional weapons within the N.A.T.O, alliance (it should be mentioned that
France, as most of the other members of the alliance, never
filled their quotas of conventional weapons in N.A.T.O. and
that only Germany held arms of recent vintage). De Gaulle
33 Roy Macridis, "De Gaulle's Foreign Policy and the Fifth Republic," The Yale Review, L (1960-1961), pp. 172-187. 97 also found that there was no acceptable crieria for united responsibilities against the Soviet Union, thus begging the fact that interests no longer coincided; and finally that the concentration of military strength in the area out lined by N.A.T.O. would advance Communism in other areas of the world. De Gaulle, to add to this, also felt that whereas
France was expected to integrate the bulk, if not all, of her forces under N.A.T.O. command, the British and the
Americans were only expected to integrate a small portion, this particularly being aimed at the United States.
The French challenge to the Atlantic Community, embodied around that of defense, arises from dissatisfation with the distribution of power and whether there are common interests between the Allies, It seems unfortunate that the French nation never really modified herself to her secondary position, but as she has not, she has clashed, and I might add successfully, with the major powers of the world.
Perhaps dhe of the major thorns in the side of the
Western allies is that of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
What other instrument of war today means so much status to a would-be power than that of nuclear weapons? Can one wonder why nuclear weaponry has spread vis a vis any program of nuclear disarmament? One can only wonder, pessimistically to say the least, where our road will lead. However, I digress 1 98
It was McGeorge Bundy who stated: "The problem of defense in the nuclear age is as much psychological as 34 military." Out of context this could mean numerous things, but placed in its relationship to the cause of French nuclear development it is highly accurate in light that nuclear weapons seem to be the major backbone today for a nation to be truly considered powerful.
The French can always lay prior claim to nuclear develop ment as it is, for France initiated through the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique in 1945, a study of atomic research.
Prior to this Raoul Dautry, as the Minister of Armaments, furthered the program of nuclear research before the collapse of France in 1940, in which case the vital material was transferred to Ango-Saxon hands in Canada. It was at the urging of French scientists in the month of July 1944, for
De Gaulle to launch officially an atomic energy program that the C.E.A. was formed in 1945.^^
Under the Fourth Republic, confused and bogged down with budgets, external wars, and political immobilism.
34prancois de Rose, "Atlantic Relationships and Nuclear Problems," Foreign Affairs. XLI, No. 3 (April, 1963), p. 483.
^^Wolf Mendl, "The Background of French Nuclear Policy," International Affairs, XLI, No. 1 (January 1965), pp. 22-36. 99 research developed slowly; but the point is made that it did develop. When De Gaulle embarked upon a strong program for the enhancement of the status of his nation he stated;
It goes without saying that atomic weapons will be the basis for our striking force— that we shall build them or buy them. And since eventually it will become possible to destroy France from any spot in the world, our force must be capable of acting anywhere on earth.
To assess and decipher the illogic of thié statement need not detain us here. The fact of the matter is that with the refusal to sell France nuclear weapons, France developed her own small force. The irony of the nuclear story is that although the United States refused to aid in the French develop ment and even excluded Prance from the Bermuda meeting between
Macmillan and President Kennedy, which formulated a new nuclear policy, the Atomic Energy Act of the United States states that information concerning the design of atomic weapons can only go to the nations who are capable of building bombs, the moral being; To have parity with the United 3 7 States, build bombs— De Gaulle did.
The government of the United States then sought a solution to the nuclear dilemma— to first satiate the
^^Furniss, France, Troubled Ally, p. 354.
37lbid., p. 361. 100
The government of the United States then sought a solution to the nuclear dilemma— to first satiate the demand for a better integrated nuclear force while yet retaining a United States finger on the nuclear button. She did this by means of a plan called the Multi-Lateral Nuclear
Force (M.L.F.) by which there would be twenty-five Polaris surface ships manned with mixed crews, the President of the
United States retaining the final veto power over their use.
De Gaulle immediately saw the detriment of this to his plans of la grandeur for this still placed France in a subordinate position not to mention taking her nuclear force from her to be integrated along with the N.A.T.O. powers. Gaullist chauvinism again reacted to defend French posture.
The British, though at first cool in its reception of the idea, immediately saw some possibilities instituting modified proposals of her own. Germany, on the other hand, seemed at first to welcome the idea, again sacrificing the wishes of her partner France to her greater benefactor the
United States. De Gaulle seeing the handwriting on the wall, began to maneuver his solid position to attain what he desired, i.e., the withdrawal of the American proposal and the American acquiescence to the French nuclear force. To do this,
France would have to coerce those in favor of M.L.F. to reject the proposal. Britain, as I have said, was luke-warm 101 to the original proposal. Turkey withdrew its support as, of course, the French already had; this left Germany as the last major voice in the alliance.
With Adenauer out of office, De Gaulle had lost a friend and ally at the head of the German government. Ludwig Erhardt, formerly the Finance Minister of Germany, now headed the government. Pro-American, luke-warm to the French, and pro cooperation with the E.F.T.A. countries, Erhardt supported the American proposal. De Gaulle then demanded a settlement within the Common Market of the grain quotas and common tariffs. The French, holding low tariffs because of efficient
farming would have to raise her tariffs; whereas the Germans, subsidizing their more inefficient farmers, had to lower their tariffs, thus producing a decline in German farm prices.
Considering the farm vote en bloc, which support the present
German government and also considering that an election would be summarily called, Erhardt was in a vice.
De Gaulle made it clear that Erhardt's problem, although
eventually having to be solved, would be postponed if Erhardt withdrew his support from the American M.L.F. program. It has been from this point that discussion in international
circles of the M.L.F. program has decreased in volume and at
the present time the program appears to be foundering. 102
It thus seems that De Gaulle has played a shrewd and ingenious game of old style diplomacy in a world of modern new style ideas and procedures. His pulling the tail feathers from the American eagle illustrates the fact that De Gaulle can easily "call the shots." His present scheme for returning to the gold standard is illustrative of the fact that he can be a potent irritant to the United States posture in the world. It is De Gaulle's desire to create two pillars of the
N.A.T.O. alliance; one based in Washington surrounded by the United States and Canada, and the other stemming from
Paris surrounded by Europe. This problem with this concept, however, is where does the pillar of Britain appear in this
structure?
I have tried to follow in this chapter the patterns of
De Gaulle's policies. One need not be objective to visage the success in which De Gaulle has raised his country in such a short time. Following the path of history, the destiny of
France and the ultimate reliance upon the inherent greatness
and majesty of his country. De Gaulle has created his
foreign policy. Can this policy be sàid to be unique? Is
this policy different really than that set down by Francis I,
Richelieu, or even the Fourth Republic? CHAPTER IV
SHALL BEAM IMMORTAL
"France is the land of the living past where nothing is
ever forgotten and little is ever learned. " ^ The French indeed
live in history as if it were in the contemporary world where French gains and losses in its numerous invasions, victories, and revolutions can still be accounted among the peoples of the country. Charles de Gaulle is the essence of
this history, recapturing for his homeland the ultimate uniqueness of the temperament of his nation, the feeling for majesty, status, and if not dominance, then equality among
the member nation states of the international system. He is a man of the old school, living within the contemporary era, horn of xenophobic nationalism, historic pride, and sovereign
state politics. He is a man of exceptional intellectual
acumen, grasping for the due interests of his nation and his people; this is indeed Charles de Gaulle.
One must, therefore, agree with David Schoenbrun's
statement that France is forever living the past, feeding
and nursing upon it as a daily routine diet; however, to
^David Schoenbrun, As France Goes (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), p. 19. 104
say that little is ever learned may be a hasty assumption
upon his part. For indeed, Charles de Gaulle's government verifies the error in the latter part of Schoenbrun's state ment. From the historical development of French international
intercourse. De Gaulle has found the alternatives that are
lacking in many of the dualist thinking nations of the day. whereas nations such as the Soviet Union and the United States face world affairs in terms of dualism, i.e., good and bad, success or failure, France looks at the world in terms of cyclical history in which all political regimes and all
ideologies are transitory and therefore prepares her foreign policy accordingly.
"Like some great men in the past. De Gaulle does not
think it necessary to be consistent.Nations, trends, and circumstances are different so therefore one must adjust and modify the policies to fit or adhere to the situation.
De Gaulle is considered likewise a realist, as was his ancestor
Richelieu. This is illustrated, for example, by the acknow
ledgement of the existence of a Communist Qiina and China's
importance in the policy making of the world, the possibility
2 Alexander Werth, "De Gaulle's World View," Nation (February 24, 1964), p. 196. 105 of a strong Europe vis a vis the United States and the
Soviet Union, the playing of nation against nation to attain one's national objectives and/or abandoning allies when the common interest dissolves.
What have been, through the years (not necessarily since
1789), the basic elements of French foreign policy? There are, I believe, three very basic elements that have governed
French foreign policy. It is not necessarily true that all tree were major factors at the same time, but each during the course of French history took its lead in the decisions of the foreign policy makers. The three elements are equilibrium on the Continent of Europe, security of French
"natural" boundaries and later the French Empire, and eventually, particularly since the Second World War, the factor of inferiority. The former two factors have been generally shared at one time or another by all members of the inter national community; it is the latter element, however, although perhaps felt in degrees to many nations, which has uniquely played a major role in the conduct of France in the international arena. 106
PRANCE AND EQUILIBRIUM
Equilibrium, most often attributed to policies of
Great Britain, has equally been relied upon by the French, who as a part of the Continent was not protected by a vast
navy and body of water as had been the British. Maneuvering
herself into a position of posture after the Treaty of Vienna
of 1815, and entering into the Holy Alliance afterwards, not
to mention participating in that portion of the Concert of
Europe determined to defend the nations of Europe against
liberal views, was the beginning of this process of equilibrium
after the revolution of 1789. The major purpose during these
years for alliances and counter-alliances was to maintain
equilibrium of power among the nations of Europe for the
attainment of a security balance. The best example of
excellent diplomacy on the part o France to secure an equili
brium would be just prior to World War I, when France moved
from her isolated status, took advantage of positions open
to her, and began to build her own alliance structure
vis a vis that of the Central Powers.
After the Second World War France found that equilibrium
could only be reached upon coinciding with one of two poles
the West was the most contiguous and common to her interests. 107
When East-West tensions continually diminished to the point that major war between the two opponents seemed unlikely, it was President de Gaulle who began to build an equal force in the form of a strong united Europe under French tutelage.
FRANCE AND SECURITY
Security, that which is a common factor in all foreign policies from Chad to the Soviet Union, of course took major form in the elaboration of French foreign policy. France took exceptional heed of her neighbor to the East— Germany, who throughout the years from the days of the Celts to World
War II continually invaded and re-invaded the French nation.
During the years to 1862, France did not have to fear so much her German neighbor because of Germany's divided condi tion. It wasn't till after her unification and her military strength build-up under Bismarck that the French hatred and fear of the Germans was rekindled.
After the First World War, when France found herself invaded for the second time in forty years, France made sure to enforce efforts to keep Germany weak; when this failed and World War II ensued the French again embarked upon the same policy after this War as after the First. With this 108 policy again failing because of allied pressure and
Germany's active potential, the French nation under the
Fourth and Fifth Republic felt that the best possible way for France to be protected would be for Germany to be integrated both economically and militarily— thus the development of the
E.C.S.C., W.E.U., and the E.E.C. As Monnet had said:
"Faire l'Europe, c'est faire la paix. Even today, with so much concern over nations of Communism and their desire for ideological aggrandizement over the Western world, France is desirous of placing no unnecessary power in the hands of the
Germans particularly in the form of nuclear weaponry. It is often wondered, from the French point of view, if France really desires to have again a unified Germany of her Eastern border.
FRENCH INFERIORITY
The French inferiority complex which seemed to take hold of the French nation appeared as the obvious particularly after the Second World War when France was indeed a weak partner of the Allies. This was manifested particularly with her parly defeat at the hands of the Germans, the rise
^Finder, op. cit., p. 8. 109 of the two major world powers of the United States and the
Soviet Union, and her obvious exclusion from prime inter national negotiations and discussions.
It is from this inferior status that the French govern ment under the Fourth Republic and the De Gaulle regime under the Fifth strove for la grandeur and status within the world. From this policy stemmed a dominance within Europe,
a nuclear force of her own, and open fivalry with her ally
the United States. I have already discussed in detail the wish of the Republics (Fourth and Fifth) of France to attain
status by various means: with N.A.T.O., the E.E.C. and by
placing herself at the disposal as a mediary in disputes between the East and her allies of the West; this was carried
on without interruption from the impotent Fourth Republic
into the Fifth. The emphasis for status has been strong
under the De Gaulle administration, the reasons being that
his government is likewise strong and able to make decisions
quickly and with the consensus of the Assembly, in which his
own party the U.N.R. is dominant, and among the French
populace aware of the position that France has been placed
by her President.
Perhaps a great source of irritation was removed with
the development of the French nuclear bomb. While being unsure 110 of the United States commitment of its bomb towards the security of Europe, the French could not also deter (if ever so slightly), not to mention the fact that the French nuclear force would be psychologically a morale booster placing France on the same level as the Soviet Union, United States, Britain and China.
It was seen how the Fourth Republic struggled and was finally defeated in her effort to hold on to the French Empire, which if nothing else was a tangible symbol of French greatness to which she adhered so strongly. De Gaulle, faced with the identical problem, found that only by shifting French attention from the Empire to a Third Force in Europe with Prance as possible chairman, could he rid France of its white elephant— her Empire.
DE GAULLE AND OLD SCHOOL DIPLOMACY
What is this man De Gaulle whom the world calls a man with unique ambitions and revolutionary ideas? Where is he leading France and what are his objectives? Are his policies valid today?
The President of the Republic is a product of the old school, dealing in old school diplomacy, old school concepts. Ill and old school perceptions. It is interesting to note how
these antiquated attitudes succeed so well in a contemporary world which has shunned the old and adopted the new.
Nicolson in his book, The Evolution of Modern Diplomacy,
identifies both schools of diplomacy— the old and the new.
The old is based primarily on the concept of the existence of certain major powers within Europe, as it was during the 19th
century. The world is an objective gradation of nations in
terms of power and in which it was the responsibility of the
great powers for the guidance and course of international events. It was the unilateral diplomacy and negotiation that
took primacy in the old school of diplomacy, in which public
conferences and ideological confrontations were shied away
from.
The new diplomacy, now primarily used particularly by
the United States and the Soviet Union with their allies
following suit, introduces diplomacy by conference with all powers or subsidiaries involved. The new techniques make
use of ideological slogans and generally stresses the
equality of all nations at the conference table, irrespective
of the power which they wield. "All of de Gaulle's sympathies
remain with the procedures of the old diplomacy while 112
conceding basic alterations to the balance of forces.
Another aspect of De Gaulle is his overt sense for
nationalism. "No other force, ideological, social or economic has undermined the nation state as the focal point of man ' s
ultimate loyalty."^ De Gaulle feels that only power can
check power, "and the only possible international order is
one in which an equilibrium of power is reached.
De Gaulle is often considered as not only a proponent
of the old line of thinking, but a realist of the old school
in which "international relations provides an arena of conflict
in which every participant nation state attempts to maximize
its strength at the expense of the other. This in itself
explains a great deal in regard to De Gaulle's policies over
the international affairs of the French state.
With this background of his general behavior patterns,
it is interesting to see how he has applied this thinking.
^Macridis, De Gaulle Republic. Quest, p. 180.
^Ibid., p. 172.
^Ibid, pp. 175-176.
7Ibid., p. 172. 113
Truly De Gaulle feels that the world is run by the major powers (as long as France is one of them) for does this not explain his distaste for the United Nations in which the majority of the members are those nations which are subsidized, unstable, lacking history, and powerless? Is it not for this reason that De Gaulle shuns mass conferences in which the "secondary world" holds an equal voice in affairs of the major world powers? Considering France a major power
(as well as China), it would be natural for him to believe that France must play a vital role in the decision making apparatus of the N.A.T.O. alliance, and for Red China to be seated at the Security Council of the United Nations.
It is to be remembered that according to the old diplomatic philosophy to which De Gaulle adheres himself, alliances lose their usefulness as circumstances change
(rebis sic stantibus). Thus according to this philosophy the original concept of which N.A.T.O. was born has lost perspective and thus an overhaul, a "rethink" of N.A.T.O. must be undertaken, with the behavior patterns of the soviet
Union changing, with power dissipating into numerous hands, and Communist challenges coming from elsewhere, N.A.T.O. is slowly becoming obsolescent— and De Gaulle knows it. 114
With the factor of state to state conduct with national
interest as the prime mover of states (according to De Gaulle),
it is interesting to see where De Gaulle has led his country with such success and skill. Of all the aspects of his diplomacy this is perhaps where he has reached the capstone
of his genius.
To examine De Gaulle ' s diplomacy it is important to notice the position of his allies and adversaries in relation
to France and her position in the schemes of international
affairs. Germany, as we have seen already, is reliant upon
France in regard to promoting economic progress via the
Common Market; France and Germany are both the main pillars
to the E.E.C. and each country knows it. According to the
agreement made by De Gaulle to Adenauer in 1958, France would
support Germany in a showdown over her dismemberment, particu
larly over Berlin; this guarantee is vital to the Germans
and in particular to the United States and her relationship
to Europe. If any nation was a dependent nation in Europe
and a non-member of the major power group, that nation is
Germany, and thus, like France after the Second World War, must conduct her diplomacy accordingly. France, under
De Gaulle, is well aware of this dependence and is taking
advantage of it. 115
French relations with the Soviet Union cover the
range from amicable to hostile according to the circumstance.
De Gaulle has proclaimed his desire for a closer contact with
the Soviet Union and in so doing would not press for an allied
settlement over Berlin and East Germany at the soviet's
expense. The Soviet Union has gained, and realizes that
they have gained, a needed voice in the councils of the West
by being conciliatory to the President of France. It must
also be remembered that the Soviet Union and France both agree
on resisting United States advances towards arming Germany with nuclear weapons, for both countries, Russia and France,
have lost much in past German wars and still regard Germany
as potentially dangerous. For it also must be remembered
that France would place a large obstacle in front of any
attempts of fully rearming Germany— the Soviet government
realizes this, and De Gaulle realizes that they realize it.
For the British the story is somewhat different as
well as difficult. It was the French, who have always used
Britain as their scapegoat for integration failures, that
had blocked British entry into the Common Market. At a
time when the British economy was not exactly booming, in
need of extensive markets, and in need of the benefits accruing
from the Common Market, the French veto came as a dangerous 116 wound. It is De Gaulle who still holds this carrot in front of the nose of the British even though the present Labor government tends to shy away from European movements, relying more upon the loosely formed Free Trade Area.
For the United States, France presents many problems.
The United States would be able to accomplish her policies far easier if the French would abandon some of her contentions with her. Development of a nuclear force of her own, rejection of an M.L.F., vetoing British entry into the Common Market,
French rejection of old United States policies by accepting and extending diplomatic recognition to the Peoples Republic of China as well as countermanding American instructions not to trade with the island of ^uba, plus the pinpricks such as creating a stir over the gold backing of the dollar and non-cooperation in Vietnam, leads France in a very negotiable position vis a vis the United States.
So, therefore. De Gaulle promises something for every one, but does not necessarily have to give. Neither Germany, the United States, Britain, nor the Soviet Union can afford to alienate the government of France, for although they all have something to gain, they all have something to lose.
It is an intricate balance between give and take with
De Gaulle doing the giving and taking. 117
It is also interesting to note that De Gaulle can never be pushed to the wall with a coalition of these malcontents, for he need never alienate them all at the same time; he simply can play one off against the other for the sake of
French national interest. As one writer would say: "The world is the best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary evil,"® with De Gaulle as the necessary evil.
THE CYCLE OF FRANCE
Dorothy Pickles states in her book. The Fifth French
Republic, that French history has revolved in three cycles since the revolution of 1789; "Constitutional monarchy gives way to Republic and the Republic in turn is replaced 9 by some form of dictatorial government." She feels that although three cycles have been completed in French history, perhaps France is entering a fourth beginning with the
Provisional Government set up under De Gaulle in 1945. The
Fourth Republic being similar to the constitutional monarchy only in the sense that it found no solution to create immunity
®D. W. Brogan, The French Nation from Napoleon to Retain 1814-1940 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957), p. 303.
^Pickles, op. cit., p. 4. 118
from being overthrown. If this bears fruit, the end result would be dictatorship either under De Gaulle or his successor(s)
under the Fifth Republic; as I had mentioned earlier, the
Fifth Republic is so patterned that this transition could
legally occur.
Evolution of the dynamic France since the year 1945 has seemingly been too rapid to adjust to psychological changes
and modifications that have occurred in relationship to the
French in the world structure. But yet, although the French
refuse to adapt to their new position, they are definitely
succeeding inr their role, for even though an American or a
Russian could slight the French as a secondary nation, France
can prove her primacy. If secondary in tangible power, she
is primary in the affairs of states, particularly when every
nation has a distinct interest in French policy, the United
States and Germany particularly.
To answer the question as to whether De Gaulle is
indeed a revolutionary figure on the French scene seems to be a redundant question now, for his policies clearly speak with the tongue of the past. Even though his policies may differ in emphasis and procedure, his policies are continua
tions of not only past policies, but past trends and attitudes
as well. 119
Prance after generations of national decay is for the first time becoming revitalized, for actually not since
Napoleon have the ^rench felt such vigor in either objective or accomplishment (I am by no means comparing the figures of both De Gaulle and Napoleon Bonaparte, for their differences exceed their common attributes). The glory and grandeur of
Prance are on the rise once again with a dedicated and astute man at the helm, for indeed France is moving on stronger than ever ;
O star of Prance.,.. Dim, smitten star. Orb not of Prance alone, pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes. The struggle and the daring, rage divine for liberty, Of aspirations toward the far ideal, enthusiasts's dreams of brotherhood.
Again the star, O France, fair lustrous star. In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever. Shall beam immortal.
Walt Whitman BIBLIOGRAPHY
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