The Sanctuary and the Glacis France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Nuclear Weapons in the 1980S (Part 1)
The Sanctuary and the Glacis France, the Federal Republic of Germany, and Nuclear Weapons in the 1980s (Part 1) ✣ Frédéric Bozo In December 1985, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the Federal Republic of Ger- many (FRG) came to Paris to meet with French President François Mitterrand to discuss defense and security cooperation. Kohl had requested the meeting in the hope of overcoming the stalemate that had emerged during the previ- ous months, not least regarding nuclear matters—a sensitive subject in light of the two countries’ different nuclear weapons status. The conversation was thorough. Mitterrand, in particular, mentioned the possibility of establishing some form of nuclear consultation mechanism between Paris and Bonn in times of crisis or war, a long-time West German demand. Kohl was euphoric: “This is the very first time that this kind of discussion can take place,” he told Mitterrand. “Such a conversation had never before been possible between a [French] president and a [West German] chancellor,” he continued, adding that his father, a captain in the German army, “would never have imagined such a situation.”1 Kohl was right. Only a few years before, such topics were hardly discussed between French and West German leaders. In the wake of Mitterrand’s election in the spring of 1981, Helmut Schmidt, Kohl’s prede- cessor, had come to Mitterrand’s vacation home in the southwest of France for extensive discussions of the international context as well as bilateral relations. Toward the end of their first meeting, Mitterrand, who had been briefed on the importance of nuclear consultation to the FRG, asked Schmidt whether he had discussed the topic with his predecessor, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.
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