Case Studies III

1
Case Studies III

• Introduction to French foreign policy

2
Three overlapping dimensions?

• Relationship with Germany and Europe
• Relationship with the U.S.
• From the Empire to the Francophone community
• France as a great power?
• From European supremacy to middle power
• The idea of grandeur
• Africa and the francophone Quebec

3
France, Germany and Europe in the 19th century

• French search for supremacy on the continent
  Napoleon (1799-1815) Napoleon III (1851-1870)
• European powers to favour at Vienna closer
  political co-operation among the German states to
  counterbalance French influence
• Frances twenty years in isolation following
  German unification (1871-1891)

4
France, the West and the German problem

• The Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871)
• The loss of Alsace-Lorraine until 1918
• The triple Entente (1904-1907)
• The experience of World War I
• How to contain Germany?
• The search for an alliance with Britain and the
  U.S. (1918-1919)
• The Briand-Kellog Pact (1928)
• The Maginot Line (1930s)
• NATO and European integration

5
France, the East and the German problem

• The so-called Eastern alliances
• The alliance with Russia (1891-1917)
• Republican France and czarist Russia
• The bolshevik revolution and the alliances with
  Poland and Czechoslovakia (1920s)
• The alliance with the Soviet Union (1935)
• The idea of an alliance with Britain and the USSR
  (post 1945, abandoned)

6
France and European integration

• Instrument for controlling German economic
  production and reconstruction
• The Ruhr and the Saar regions
• Soft containment of Germany
• European leadership
• The idea of Europe as an amplifier of French
  power
• A strong Europe as a counterbalance to American
  and Soviet influence
• Europe as a Third Force (de Gaulle)

7
France and the Empire

• The Empire as a symbol of French power
• Centralisation of power in Paris
• Lack of a reform on the model of the British
  Commonwealth
• The independence of Syria and Lebanon
• The loss of Indochina (1954)
• The loss of North Africa (1955-1963)
• The Suez Canal shock (1956)
• Franchphone Africa as the domain privè
• About 4 million people of North African descent
  in France

8
Does the alliance with the U.S. always preserve
France security?

• Membership of NATO (1949)
• The Suez Canal crisis (1956)
• De Gaulles directorate proposal within NATO
  (1958)
• US, UK and other NATO members refusal
• Frances withdrawal from NATO (1967)
• Force de Frappe Blowing Force
• French anxiety about German reunification
• France moving closer to the alliance
• The 1998 St Malo agreement with Britain
• The European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI)

9
Frances international commitments and great
power ambitions

• French troops in Africa
• Ivory Coast, Senegal, Rèunion and Mayotte,
  Djibouti, Gabon, Cameroon, Chad
• French troops in the Balkans
• French troops in the Pacific
• The nuclear experiments at Mururoa in the 1990s

10
Conclusions

• The three overlapping circles
• Strong partnership with Germany and leadership in
  Africa to counterbalance U.S. leadership
• The maintenance of an independent defence
  capability
• The idea of Europe Puissance
• Giscard dEstaings presidency of the European
  convention
• French rejection of European constitution
• The significance of the forthcoming French
  elections?