Franco-German Reconciliation Research Articles

Playing through to Europe? Depiction and Reception of the First World War in the Videogame Valiant Hearts

ABSTRACT The video game Valiant Hearts, released in 2014 for the First World War centenary, sold over 2.5 million copies and can be considered one of the major contemporary pop-culture historical representations of this war shaping public interpretations of this event. The paper explores how Valiant Hearts, as a kind of informal institution affecting historical remembrance, constructs and encourages a specific framing through the deployment of Europeanizing elements of anti-war narrative, Franco-German reconciliation narrative, and the de-nationalizing logic that indirectly legitimizes the European integration. The analysis of the videogame in the context of the historical film Merry Christmas (2005) is complemented with a close reading of illustrative empirical examples of Let’s Plays (paratextual user-generated videos where people record themselves while playing videogames) that indicate how Europeans of different national backgrounds interact with the game Valiant Hearts. The examined cases point to how the everyday, seemingly apolitical leisure activity of playing and watching videogames dealing with history can advance Europeanizing narratives and present occasions for informal Europeanization.

Experience and Peculiarities of Reconciliation of Contradictions between Germany and France

The article is devoted to the study of the experience and peculiarities of reconciliation of contradictions between Germany and France. The positions of the Presidents of France and Chancellors of the Federal Republic of Germany regarding the theoretical foundations and practical steps of the implementation of French-German reconciliation are studied. This paper deals with the problem of Alsace-Lorraine, a region with a border identity, which repeatedly became the cause of Franco-German disputes and passed from one state to another. The role of the individual in overcoming the contradictions between Germany and France is highlighted. The factor of European integration is considered, which not only contributed to the reconciliation of contradictions between Germany and France, but also turned the two states into leaders of a united Europe. The Elysee Treaty and its implementation were analyzed. The military cooperation between France and Germany is investigated. The problem of historical memory and the desire to reconcile the contradictions between Germany and France are revealed. It is proved that the experience and peculiarities of reconciliation of contradictions between Germany and France testify to the fact that the real reconciliation of the two leading states directed their efforts towards a more global goal – the creation of a common Europe. It was concluded that the mechanisms for achieving Franco-German reconciliation are interesting for studying and borrowing, taking into account national characteristics in the reconciliation of other European countries, and regions with borderline identities. The French-German experience may be useful for application in Polish-Ukrainian relations. The main conclusion from the analysis of the experience and the peculiarities of reconciling the contradictions between Germany and France is that their implementation led to unexpected and far-reaching consequences that once seemed just a dream. At the beginning of European integration in the 50s of the twentieth century, it was difficult to imagine the contemporary EU with its common currency, the Schengen area, developed economy, social programs. Franco-German reconciliation was transformed into the fruitful work of the Franco-German tandem, on the success of which depends not only the future of France and Germany, but the evolution of the entire united Europe.

Remembering the "Forgotten Zone"

In much of the English-language scholarship on the post-1945 Allied occupation of Germany, French officials appear as little more than late arrivals to the victors’ table, in need of and destined to follow Anglo-American leadership in the emerging Cold War. However, French occupation policies were unique within the western camp and helped lay the foundations of postwar Franco-German reconciliation that are often credited to the 1963 Elysée Treaty. Exploring how the French occupation has been neglected, this article traces the memory of the zone across the often-disconnected work of French-, German-, and English-speaking scholars since the 1950s. Moreover, it outlines new avenues of research that could help historians resurrect the unique experience of the French zone and enrich our appreciation of the Franco-German “motor” on which Europe still relies.

A Grave Reconciliation: The Establishment of German War Cemeteries in Normandy, 1944–1964

After the Battle of Normandy, one of the primary concerns in the region was what to do with the bodies of the former occupiers: the German war dead. As the Allied graves registration units left Normandy, local French leaders were responsible for the care of German war graves until the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge, VDK) took over maintenance responsibilities in the mid-1950s and officially inaugurated them as VDK sites in the early 1960s. This essay traces that transition and argues that in the period between 1944 and 1964 it was necessary for Normandy and greater France to assume the role of host to German war dead in perpetuity. The act of hosting German war dead on French soil smoothed the conditions necessary for Franco-German reconciliation in the second half of the 20th century.

Franco German Reconciliation: Lessons for India and Pakistan

Post Second World War era was a revolution in itself due to an emerging trend of reconciliation in the European states which was unprecedented in the past due to power politics. Franco German peace process is a classic example of post second world war period that ended up centuries old rivalry and enmity between the both nationalist states and brought peace and stability in the whole region. This enmity was fueled with excessive nationalism from the both sides that compelled the both nations to train their new generations to build a strong military to fight with each other in this regard. Both the world wars proved to be a deadly battle for the mankind especially for both the French and German nations and at the end of the 2nd World War there was a dire need of reconciliation and integration that ultimately led to European Union and friendly relations were established between both the historically hostile nations when French President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Germany Adenauer signed a treaty of mutual friendship and now both the nations possess friendly ties. Hostile relations between India and Pakistan are not centuries old but the clash of ideologies between the both newly born states led the region towards war and nuclear arms race making the region the hottest nuclear flash point. The paper will discuss and debate to which extend the Franco German Peace and Reconciliation Model could be applied or not be applied in the context of the Subcontinent carefully keeping in view the dynamics of the region.

Foreign Policy of Hungary Towards Ukraine or “European Menu à la Carte”

The author raises the issue of settling conflicts around the world and discusses modern attempts to establish law and order. Particular attention is paid to the intricate relations between Hungary and Ukraine. With Russia’s aggression against Ukraine there was ruined a system of international relations, which provided for the rule of law, the right to settle disputes without applying military tools, force or threats. Russia initiated a new precedent of impunity, insolent violation of the fundamental norms of international law, and demonstrated the world how the borders may be redrawn as one sees fit and “bring historical justice”. The author notes that one of the reasons for the escalation of the conflict between Hungary and Ukraine has become the language issue. Still, however pity it is, all attempts of the Ukrainian side to resolve conflict matters have appeared to be vane, since Budapest is reluctant to listen to and consider any arguments of Kyiv, being fully distracted by its demand. It is hard to imagine that in civilized “old” Europe, Germany, for instance, would express claims or even threaten France for the fact that pupils in schools of the French region of Alsace (until 1918, its territory formed part of Germany that attempted to annex it at times of the Second World War) are taught in the official language – French, not in the language of the neighbouring country, even though the Alsatian and German languages are equally spoken there. Unfortunately, Hungary seems not to be ready to follow the example of the Franco-German reconciliation in terms of relations with all neighbours, despite the philosophy of its membership in the EU and NATO. The revenge-seeking attitudes of the Hungarian political establishment regarding the revision of borders according to the Versailles and Yalta systems of international relations are constantly boosted in all directions in the neighbouring countries, where ethnic Hungarians live (Romania, Slovakia, Serbia and Ukraine). The so-called “formula of protecting interests of Russian citizens in Crimea and Donbas” adopted from Putin has apparently laid the foundation for the foreign policy strategy of V. Orban. First, as regards the appeal to make the region of ethnic Hungarians’ residence autonomous and subsequently – the appeal to hold a referendum on separation. The author summarizes that along with the political and diplomatic efforts, a substantial role in easing the tension in relations with Budapest should be played by non-governmental organizations and the expert community though holding forums and scientific conferences aiming at discussing the above-mentioned issues. Keywords: Hungary, conflict, Law on Language, geopolitics, strategies, foreign policy, Ukraine.

The ‘Jewish cardinal’? Aron Jean-Marie Lustiger (1926–2007)

Cardinal Aron Jean-Marie Lustiger died at the age of 80 in 2007. Archbishop of Paris from 1981 to 2005, he was a towering and controversial public figure, both within the Catholic church and in European society more broadly. Since his death, he has remained a subject of intense interest. This essay will analyse two films about him – the 2012 documentary Aron Jean-Marie Lustiger (Jean-Yves Fischbach) and the 2013 fiction film Le Métis de Dieu (Ilan Duran Cohen) – as prisms through which the thought, policies and achievements of Lustiger can be examined and assessed. Primarily a charismatic man of faith, Lustiger was also widely engaged with the history of his times. It will be argued that his personal trajectory, frequently through his own direct agency, offers insight into several crucial layers of the cultural and political history of France, including the Occupation years; the Jewish question; the post-war recovery and decolonisation processes; Franco-German reconciliation; the restructuring of the universities; the chaotic socio-political movements around 1968; the development of the European Union; and the complex transformations of church life since the Second Vatican Council with the concomitant shifts in the relations between church and state.

Franco-German relations in the Gaullist thought

The presented article attempts to describe and analise the evolution of Charles de Gaulle’s ideas regarding the relations between states and nations of France and Germany. Beginning with the first look towards the eastern neighbour, through the events of interwar period until the time of de Gaulle’s presidency, the article presents ideas and demands formulated by de Gaulle in the issue of franco-german relations. The article also describes the process of evolution of Gaullist approach, from the desire of the vengeance on Germans to the belief in the need of reconciliation of two nations. The article intends to prove that the franco-german relations (as viewed by de Gaulle), just like gaullism itself, had one pragmatic object: to ensure „the greatness of France”. The last object of the article is to disenchant the „romantic history” of franco-german post-war reconciliation. To achieve this object the article analises the views and postulates of German chancellor Konrad Adenauer the second great architect of franco-german reconciliation.

Anti-Liberal Europe: A Neglected Story of Europeanization, ed. Dieter Gosewinkel

This collection of essays, edited by Dieter Gosewinkel, is a stimulating contribution to the study of discourses about Europe from the 1920s to the 1970s. Its main aim is to shed light on visions and practices that clash with liberal visions of Europe and with those values that are usually considered to be at the heart of the integration project. Calling attention to the history of the ‘darker’ conceptions of Europe and to the unintended effects of ‘forced Europeanization’ (p. 12), the volume seeks to uncover anti-liberal and non-liberal visions that, far from being anti-European, not only advocated or led to a greater European unity but, importantly, were an integral part of Europe’s political, cultural and intellectual history. Stemming from a conference held in Oxford in 2011, the book includes a long introduction by the editor, a theoretical chapter by Michael Freeden and six chapters divided into a section on ‘Colonial and conservative concepts of Europe’ and another on ‘Dictatorships and their aftermath’. The volume ends with an afterword by Martin Conway. The six historical chapters making up the main body of the work raise many interesting points and touch on several important aspects of twentieth-century intellectual and cultural history. Fabian Klose examines the struggle for independence of French and British colonial subjects and their censure levelled against the anti-liberal practices that their rulers carried out while boasting of their support for individual rights and liberty. An important contention made by Klose is that the diplomatic and military co-operation between the colonial powers fuelled the perception of colonialism as a common European project, shaping an image much at odds with liberal discourses about Europe. In her contribution, Vanessa Conze looks at the shifting meaning of Abendland from the First World War to the 1960s, relating it to the changing perceptions of a particularly enduring conservative vision of Europe, one based on a shared Catholic heritage. It is a topic that has recently received attention in the English-speaking word, especially thanks to the volume edited by Riccardo Bavaj and Martina Steber, Germany and the West: The History of a Modern Concept (2015). Undine Ruge considers the ‘non-conformists of the 1930s’, focusing on the lives and works of Alexandre Marc and Denis de Rougemont, two of the main advocates of ‘integral federalism’. The emphasis is placed on the relationship between their ‘personalism’ and their visions of European federalism, and how this led to views that deeply contrasted liberal as well as totalitarian conceptions of Europe. Jürgen Elvert analyses how the meaning of the notions of Mitteleuropa and Reich changed during the Third Reich in connection with the vicissitudes of war and how they were used by Nazi ideologues and politicians to imagine Europe’s future. Particularly absorbing is the chapter by Peter Schöttler, who retraces the biography of his grandfather, SS-Brigadeführer Gustav Krukenberg. Having worked as a lobbyist for German firms in Paris in the 1920s, Krukenberg joined the Nazi party and then the Wehrmacht, and was promoted in 1944 to brigadier-general and attached, at his own wish, to the French SS division ‘Charlemagne’. Released from a Soviet prisoner camp in 1956, he then became an active supporter of Adenauer’s Franco-German reconciliation policies. Schöttler uses Krukenberg’s life to illustrate an unduly neglected way in which the Franco-German collaboration could serve as a basis for projects of European unification. In the last of the historical chapters, Jana Wuestenhagen focuses on the GDR to investigate the way in which Europe was imagined from behind the Iron Curtain. The most important sections of the book are the introduction, where the aims of the volume are spelled out (though often in unnecessarily convoluted language) and the chapter by Michael Freeden, where some of the methodological issues relating to Gosewinkel’s approach are considered—first and foremost that of properly defining liberal and anti-liberal principles and ideologies in relation to their changing cultural contexts.

La Grande Guerre et la réconciliation franco-allemande (1914-2014)

On August 3rd, 2014, the commemoration of the beginning of the Great War was celebrated by a Franco-German ceremony in Alsace. This article puts into perspective the status of the Great War in the process of Franco-German reconciliation. It shows how, in the aftermath of the war, memory took divergent paths in both countries. Apart from the slowness of the cultural demobilisation, this “asymmetry of remembrance” made difficult and restricted the first initiatives of reconciliation. This asymmetry intensified after 1945 but at the same time series of symbolic gestures contributed to an integration of the Great War in the master narrative of the Franco-German reconciliation. A century after the beginning of World War I, beyond the official commemoration, cultural and memorial initiatives show that a shared “cultural memory” can eventually emerge.

Disarming Hatred: History Education, National Memories, and Franco-German Reconciliation from World War I to the Cold War

On May 4, 2006, French and German cultural ministers announced the publication ofHistoire/Geschichte, the world's first secondary school history textbook produced jointly by two countries. Authored by a team of French and German historians and published simultaneously in both languages, the book's release drew considerable public attention. French and German heads-of-state readily pointed to the joint history textbook as a shining example of the close and positive relations between their two countries, while their governments heralded the book for “symbolically sealing Franco-German reconciliation.” Beyond European shores, East Asian commentators in particular have taken note of Franco-German textbook collaboration, citing it as a possible model for how to work through their own region's often antagonistic past. Diplomatic praise is not mere hyperbole. From the Franco-Prussian War (1870) through World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945), France and Germany were widely perceived to be “hereditary enemies.” The publication ofHistoire/Geschichteembodies one of the most crucial developments in modern international relations: the emergence of France and Germany as the “linchpin” of the New Europe.

On the Origins of the Franco-German EMU Controversies

EMU is, to a large extent, the result of a process of Franco-German reconciliation and understanding. However, in the postwar period, there were significant differences in ideas and economic policy-making in Germany and France. France was dominated by the tradition republicaine, giving a central role to the state in economic life. In Germany, the federal structure of the state went together with the social market economy. In this paper an analysis is presented of these differences in thought and economic policy-making, how they evolved through time, and how they contributed to shaping the nature and form of the European Union. The focus is on the Rome Treaties, the Werner Report and the Maastricht Treaty process.

The Swastika and the Stage: German Theatre and Society, 1933-1945 (review)

Reviewed by: The Swastika and the Stage: German Theatre and Society, 1933-1945 John London Gerwin Strobl . The Swastika and the Stage: German Theatre and Society, 1933-1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xii + 341. $95.00. This book begins with a provocative introduction: by presenting documented evidence, Strobl explains how the most exciting culture of the Weimar Republic (the culture with which contemporary readers are now most familiar) actually alienated huge sectors of the German population. He studies three educated individuals who were to become leading Nazis—Rainer Schlösser, Hans Severus Ziegler, and Baldur von Schirach—as examples of those who lost out in the cultural revolution of the period. Strobl penetrates the psychology of those who [End Page 524] would later welcome the changes initiated in 1933. You did not have to be highly conservative to be shocked by the politics and aesthetics of avant-garde theater in the 1920s: the radical plays of Erich Mühsam and Ernst Toller, together with director Leopold Jeßner's assaults on the classics, politicized theater by attacking nationalism, and, in the process, cutting well-known texts, sacrificing the poetic recitation of verse drama, and sometimes providing inaudible spectacles. As a result, theater auditoria were often emptied. Subsequent chapters describe what ensued after 1933. Chapter 2 studies "visions of a national rebirth" with a subtle analysis of Hanns Johst's Schlageter, a play designed to evoke "survivor guilt" (41) in its audiences, and a view of the genre of the Thingspiel (enormous open-air shows which plotted the resurrection of the country). The following chapter contains a detailed examination of Eberhard Wolfgang Möller's The Frankenburg Dice Game, which premiered at the Olympic Games in 1936, and examples of Nazi history plays which were promoted after the ban of much directly contemporary representation of the regime. Chapter 4 concentrates on the theatrical treatment of other nations, such as France, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, which had disputed regions in which Germans lived. Among the surprises here are the dramas advocating Franco-German reconciliation. In chapter 5 racism comes under scrutiny. Of particular interest are the Deutsche Afrika-Schau, a mixture of colonial exhibition and traveling circus which ran from 1936 to 1940, and the fact that some Nazi dramatists showed sympathy for non-Aryan peoples. Strobl has written a valuable section on the Nazis' difficulties in curbing existing Christian theater and an account of the Third Reich's dramatic propaganda against Catholicism (chapter 6). At times, audience hostility to such material succeeded in a Nazi retreat. Apart from an important aside on amateur theater, chapter 7 deals with the regulations affecting theater during Hitler's regime and is intended to demonstrate the chaos resulting from competing Nazi factions. Local Gauleiters sometimes banned plays officially promoted from Berlin. The last two chapters cover theater and propaganda (chapter 8) and the relationship of members of the profession with the Nazi hierarchy (chapter 9). Strobl sees many middle-class audiences as clinging to notions of entertainment divorced from politics, but also notes that "the more sophisticated Nazis regarded theatre as a safety valve" (190). In a coda, there are wonderful descriptions of the problems caused during the Second World War and the heroic efforts of performers to continue their work. The archival research in this book is unprecedented and reveals many fascinating vignettes hitherto unknown. There are copious details on plays submitted to the Propaganda Ministry for potential production. Among those in the Thingspiel genre, we are treated to some titles: Let There Be Light, The Crusade Against [End Page 525] Poverty, and The Scandal of Inflation (60). We learn of a twenty-year-old laborer who tried to write an allegorical play about the Führer; a fourteen-year-old girl who had penned a play in the hope of earning enough to buy Christmas presents for her family (for there would otherwise be nothing to unwrap); and a woman from the Sudetenland who apologized for sending a typed letter with her play (a drama to thank Hitler for the deliverance of her countrymen), because she had dislocated her right shoulder by waving at the man himself in a surging crowd the...

Rehabilitating a Radical Catholic: Pope Benedict XV and Marc Sangnier, 1914–1922

Pope Benedict xv's gradual rehabilitation of the French Christian Democrat Marc Sangnier, whose Sillon movement stood condemned for social Modernism, demonstrated his desire to end the excesses of his predecessor's anti-Modernist crusade and to return to the policies of Leo xiii. Sangnier, unofficial emissary of the French republic to the Vatican, helped to prepare for the restoration of diplomatic relations in 1921. Perplexed, like most French Catholics, by papal neutrality on the war, he later campaigned for Franco-German reconciliation, adopting the Vatican critique of the Versailles settlement. Sangnier's pardon, like Benedict's cautious endorsement of the Popolari in Italy, highlights the paradoxical papalism of advanced Social Catholicism.

The Atlantic Alliance in a Global System

The war in Iraq led to a confrontation between emerging American and European models for global governance. In imagining the future, each has tended to project its own positive experience in the Cold War years. Europeans imagine a multilateral concert, with confederal institutions encouraging mutual appeasement. Americans imagine a benevolent unipolar hegemony. Experience in the 1990s reinforced America's unipolar perspectives. Trends in the new century make Europe's model seem better adapted to an increasingly plural world system. The conclusion speculates on the European model's relevance to Asia. Much will depend on whether China and Japan can replicate the Franco-German reconciliation. China may have more success “containing” the US within a larger Eurasian or even UN context, including, in some fashion, Europe and the US. Conceivably the Western powers may more easily balance their own relations in a Eurasian rather than transatlantic geopolitical framework.

Two Stages of Transition from a Region of War to a Region of Peace: Realist Transition and Liberal Endurance

How do war-prone regions stabilize? This article tests realist, liberal, and constructivist hypotheses against the paradigmatic case of regional peacemaking, Western Europe after World War II. It concludes that none of the three theories perfectly explains the process of FrancoGerman reconciliation after 75 years of bitter conflict. Instead, the transition to stability occurred in two stages. The first stage, the transition, was driven by realist factors, principally the existence of a common Soviet threat and active American hegemonic participation. In the second stage, however, stability and cooperation were entrenched by liberal mechanisms, notably the institution of democratic political regimes and cooperative international institutions. I thus inductively arrive at the novel theoretical position that realist mechanisms may initially be required to compel regional rivals to put aside their differences, at least temporarily, and cooperate on the grounds of realpolitik, but liberal mechanisms are ultimately useful to sustain and deepen regional peace. How do war-prone regions stabilize? What can cause a group of states steeped in mistrust and violent conflict to put aside their grievances and build a constructive, stable future? Under what conditions can former enemies transform their relations from security competition to security cooperation? Is trust a prerequisite for regional cooperation and, if so, what type of trust? These are questions of fundamental theoretical importance. Presently, they are also of great practical importance as the international community seeks to forge lasting peace and stability

Science and Franco-German reconciliation since 1945

Relations between France and Germany after 1945, in both the sciences and the humanities, must be viewed against the background of traditional rivalry and distrust between the two countries. This article examines the cultural and political obstacles to scientific exchanges between French and German institutions and the opportunities that existed for cooperation after 1945. It is argued that an ‘invisible hand’ of scientific exchanges emerged from a network of bilateral institutions and programs beginning in the 1970s mainly under the leadership of academics rather than politicians.

シューマン・プランとイギリス, 1948年-1954年

Since 1980s, “European integration history”, which has been developed mainly by the European Community Liason Committee of Historians with using newly opend archives, has revealed many new historical evidences. Research on the relations between the Schuman Plan and Britain is one of the biggest issues of that development. However, the study on the “Eden Plan” has been rarely mentioned in the hitherto studies. The study on the Schuman Plan has been usually explained with the development of the Franco-German reconciliation. In this article, it was argued that the relationship between Britain and France was the most important aspect of the beginning of the European integration between 1948 and 1950. The Schuman Plan can be best understood by seeing the Anglo-Franco cooperation and conflict in the period. The year 1948 was marked by several important events such as the establishment of the Brussels Treaty, the Congress of Europe at The Hague, and Georges Bidault's plan on the “European Assembly”. Then in this avricle, the “Eden Plan” was discussed.The “Eden Plan” tells us many important aspects of the relations between the Schuman Plan and Britain in the early 1950s. First, it can be said that Anthony Eden was much more constructive and supportive towards the Schuman Plan than Winston S. Churchill or Harold Macmillan, who were usually regarded as the eminent “Pro-European” Conservatives. Anthony Eden tried to save the Schuman Plan, while finding the best answer to link the British Commonwealth to the Schuman Plan. Eden's approach could be the best possible British plan to join the European integration movement planned by Monnet. However, because of the suspicion of Jean Monnet towards British Government's intention, Monnet refused this possible important contribution by British Foreign Secretary. With the failure of the two Monnet's plans of political integration, the European Defence Community and European Political Community, in 1954, Monnet faced the stalemate of his own approach without having Britain inside.Thus, it is important to see the history of the relations between Britain and France from 1948 to 1954 to understand the beginning of European integration. Too narrow approach to study the Schuman Plan often ignores the origins of the Schuman Plan and the possible Britain's close relation to the plan. If Monnet showed a little more tolerance to Britain's approach, and if Britain showed a little bolder advancement to the integration, the later history of European integration should have been developed through the Anglo-France cooperation.

Turning Weakness into Strength: France's Post-World War II Diplomacy

This lucid account should lay to rest whatever remains of the notion that the French were passive onlookers to the great events of post-World War II diplomacy in Western Europe, which, it should be added, had less to do with the Soviet than the German problem. Thanks to a policy characterized by consensus, continuity, single-mindedness, and savvy, the statesmen of that recently defeated, occupied, and humiliated nation succeeded, Hitchcock shows, in re-fitting the U.S. design for Europe to the strategic requirements of their own country, while at the same time laying the groundwork for Franco-German reconciliation and European integration. He singles out several critical developments as having been responsible for the outcome. The first was the formation of the Monnet Plan, which rallied opinion behind the goal of national recovery and prevented the widening of a serious schism that had developed between planiste advocates of “structural reform” like Pierre Mendès-France, on the one hand, and free market liberals like Rene Pleven, on the other. Monnet established a tradition of technocratic leadership, the author argues, that enabled France to weather the crosswinds of Fourth Republic politics and without which policy might well have foundered.

Le choix atomique de la France (1945-1958)

France's nuclear choice (1945-1958), Maurice Vaïsse. France did not wait for the Fifth Republic to become interested in the atomic bomb. The original features of France's atomic choice depended on both domestic factors (scientific, economic, military, political) and external ones France's atomic choice was based more on competition among allies than on enemy threat. It followed the vicissitudes of European construction and felt the weight of the cold war. The decision became clearer after the Suez affair and its consequences on international relations. But the Fourth Republic wanted to pursue simultaneously European construction, Franco-German reconciliation, French Algeria and the bomb. These were the contradictions that De Gaulle's access to power resolved ; a green light was then given to the production of the nuclear weapon.