French Diplomacy Research Articles

«... J'ai fait un rêve... » Le président François Mitterrand, artisan de l'Union européenne

«... I had a dream... » Président François Mitterrand, Builder of European Union, by Philippe Moreau Defarges In 1981 Président François Mitterrand attempted to impose his socialist vision on Europe, but he was swiftly forced to bow to the traditional constraints of French diplomacy, such as ties with the Federal Republic, and the need to remain compétitive. Between 1981 and 1983 a debate started which has never been totally closed. It was thought that for the period of économie and social experiment, France should discharge itself temporarily from Community discipline. In fact, it was decided to stick to the rules of the game. At this time France needed to regain its European credibility. During the first half of 1984, Président Mitterrand resolved the knotty problems of budget déficit. However, the greatest challenges remain, i.e. the entry of Spain and Portugal and the industrial transformation which will entail severe upheaval for the Community system. And France must forge another role for itself within a new heterogeneous entity, beset by inconsistencies.

Jules Cambon and Franco-German Détente, 1907–1914

Improved Franco-German relations are rarely associated with the years preceding the Great War or with the policies of Raymond Poincaré. Yet from 1907 to 1914 a persistent attempt was made to bring about détente between Paris and Berlin, which eventually led to the French president adopting a conciliatory attitude towards Germany, occasionally at the expense of relations with Russia. The instigator of this policy was the French ambassador in Berlin, Jules Cambon. He believed that Franco-German détente could best serve the two axioms of French diplomacy since 1870: continental security and overseas expansion. Cambon considered the growth of German power in Europe and abroad to be both natural and inevitable and that France must come to terms with it.1 His policy involved ending the intransigence which he saw as having characterized French diplomacy, often with disastrous results, since 1870. He confessed in May 1908 that his ideas were fairly summarized in Clemenceau's remark to him: ‘On dit que vous avez dit que vous ne voulez aller ni à Ems ni à Faschoda.’2 These two incidents, the ‘Ems telegram’ and the Fashoda crisis, symbolized for him the recklessness and inflexibility of France's past diplomacy.

Ferdinand I of Austria: The Politics of Dynasticism in the Age of the Reformation

The volume is the first systematic investigation of the French diplomacy in Greece during World War I by an American scholar based on Greek and French archival sources.

French Diplomacy: A Two-Headed Sphinx

FRENCH DIPLOMACY: _ A TWO-HEADED SPHINX Franz-Olivier Giesbert Oince de Gaulle, America has had a problem with France. Recent French presidents have not been easy partners for Washington. First, they have sought to maintain a special relationship with Moscow; in the Gaullist conception , after all, Europe extends "from the Atlantic to the Urals." The second reason is that these presidents have all been unpredictable and elusive —a question of ambition. Henry Kissinger hits the nail on the head when he writes in the second volume of his memoirs that "the traditional goal of French diplomacy during the Gaullist Fifth Republic" was to "give at least the impression that France had shaped events, whatever they were." Things can go well only if the United States allows Paris to play the leading role. If François Mitterrand's accession to power signaled a break on the economic front, it has changed practically nothing in the diplomatic arena. The chief of state has slipped easily into the robes of presidents de Gaulle, Pompidou, and Giscard d'Estaing. Americans who had tagged Mitterrand as the apostle of union on the Left and who feared a turn toward the Soviet Union were wrong. But those who foresaw a very pro-American turn were also wrong. After practically a year of Mitterrand's diplomacy, a number ofbroad lines are emerging, which enable us to understand better what Raymond Aron has called "the Socialist Sphinx." The socialist party (PS) has spoken with two voices for quite some time. On the one hand, in a 380-page long-range plan adopted by party Franz-Olivier Giesbert is Political Editor of Le Nouvel Observateur, a French weekly. His biography of François Mitterrand won the Prix Aujourd'hui for the best political book of 1977. This article was translated by Steven B. Kennedy, who received his M.A. in International Relations from Yale University that same year. 93 94 SAIS REVIEW leaders in 1980, the party played its anti-American card. Simultaneously defending the principle of France's membership in the Atlantic Alliance, the plan exalts French-Soviet friendship, asserting that "our security and European peace hinge on Moscow." In this view, the United States, and not the U.S.S.R., is imperialist. On the other hand, during the 1981 presidential campaign Mitterrand reproached Valéry Giscard d'Estaing for his concessions to the Soviet Union, and particularly for his Warsaw meeting with Leonid Brezhnev following the Red Army's invasion of Afghanistan. Moreover , several months after his election Mitterrand took a clear stand in favor of the deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe—a decision adopted by nato in 1979—whereas his predecessor had been consistently evasive on this question. Need one speak further of a split personality? Like Jimmy Carter, Mitterrand has never been troubled by the confrontations amongst his advisors. Cohabiting the Elysée are economist Jacques Attali, an ardent supporter of Israel, and the pro-Palestinian, Régis Debray (who was with Ché Guevara in Bolivia). Around the Council of Ministers' table each Wednesday one finds all sorts: Atlanticists like André Chandernagor , minister of European affairs; neutralists like Jean-Pierre Chevènement , minister of research and technology; Third Worlders likeJean-Pierre Cot, minister of cooperation and development; and Soviet-leaning Communists like Charles Fiterman, minister of transportation. They talk . . . and Mitterrand decides. To date this has produced diplomacy that is often flamboyant , sometimes windy, and imbued with several contradictions. It is a mixture of audacity and realpolitik that is not so far from Giscardism. Why this continuity? Because France does not enjoy a great deal of room to maneuver. Economically, these are serious times, if not yet desperate. There are more than two million unemployed in the country. The trade deficit has tripled in eight years. This calls for a certain prudence, and President Mitterrand has shown that. Following a period ofgrand statements in defense of human rights and in condemnation of arms merchants, Mitterrand has returned to the stock-in-trade of "Giscard, Inc.," in which France may sell arms to Ethiopia for use in crushing the Eritrean national liberation movement, which is still supported by the ps in its official...

French Diplomacy in the Caribbean and the American Revolution

French Diplomacy in the Caribbean and the American Revolution

French Diplomacy in the Caribbean and the American Revolution

French Diplomacy in the Caribbean and the American Revolution

France and the Problem of Intervention in Spain 1834–1836

French foreign policy during the Orleans Monarchy was dominated by the search for an agreement with another power. In the first two years of the new monarchy's existence the fear of isolation exercised a profound influence over the conduct of French diplomacy and almost every French politician and diplomat regarded an entente with another great power as the only remedy. Thus the immediate aim of foreign policy was to divide the enemies of France. Throughout the negotiations in London in 1831 and 1832 on the Belgian question, Talleyrand, the French ambassador in London, regarded the prevention of an anti-French coalition as his major objective. The pursuit of French interests in the Low Countries, however important, had to be subordinated to this overriding aim. It was to England that Talleyrand looked for support; he rightly believed that the Whigs were ideologically opposed to a conservative coalition against France and that it was the English government which had the most to gain from co-operation with France on the Belgian question. Once it became clear - as it certainly had by mid-1832 - that there was little likelihood of the emergence of an anti-French coalition, the search for an agreement with another power could be associated with the pursuit of more positive ends.

France and the Rise of Fascism in Italy, 1919-23

Most discussions of French foreign policy in the early post-war era concentrate quite rightly on the 'German problem' and the consequent confrontation between England and France on how best to deal with it. Undoubtedly, securite especially along the German frontier formed the most conspicuous leitmotif running throughout French diplomacy. France's political leaders, and not only those of the right-of-centre Bloc national, were extremely reluctant to co-operate with British appeals to appease the Weimar Republic. This field has been well ploughed but that of Franco-Italian relations is relatively virgin territory. It must be considered for the light it sheds on the main thrust of French policy in the twenties.

The Slave Trade in French Diplomacy from 1814 to 1815

The Slave Trade in French Diplomacy from 1814 to 1815

French Diplomacy and the Wars of Religion

French Diplomacy and the Wars of Religion

The Definition of a Style of Imperialism: The Internal Politics of the French Educational Investment in Ottoman Beirut

During the latter part of the nineteenth century France established a substantial educational presence in Beirut and, through that burgeoning town, in other parts of Syria, particularly in Mt. Lebanon.1 The French emphasis on education was a product of an alliance of the Catholic missionary enterprise with French diplomacy and subsidies, and it was an important element in French imperial expansion into the Ottoman Empire. The investment in education was part of loosely organized political and economic activism that ultimately became the basis for the mandates over Syria and Greater Lebanon after the First World War.2 An analysis of this particular style of imperialism must investigate the tensions inherent in the alliance of French diplomacy with Catholic missionary enterprise. Finally, the quality of the French presence was determined by the interaction of diplomatic expediency, academic excellence, clerical devotion, and social evolution. The foremost asset which the Catholic missions contributed to

The Aftermath of Munich: The Course of French Diplomacy, October 1938 to March 1939

The Munich settlement marked the beginning, not the end, of a shift French policy toward eastern Europe. Not before the eve of that conference could it be rightly said that France had retreated from the east. Indeed, the very belatedness of the French decision seemed to underline the sense of ignominy which it was taken. What Munich represented, so the British ambassador Paris suggested, was a tacit confession that twenty years of diplomatic effort was in ruins. Having failed to perceive the progressive weakening of their alliance system the French government had continued up to the last moment to base their policy upon it. Now the illusion was dispelled and the British were confident that they had witnessed a turning point French foreign policy.' And so, perhaps, they had. In the words of one of his junior officers, the French chief of staff was quick to draw some strategically appropriate conclusions. La Tchecoslovaquie . . . perdait pour les Allies son importance strategique, en raison du grave affaiblissement de son appareil militaire resultant des accords de Munich. Notre influence en Europe centrale vacillait. Rien ne pouvait plus contenir l'expansion allemande vers l'est et la sud-est. Des lors, une autre orientation de notre politique s'imposait.2

British and French Diplomacy in Persia, 1800-1810

British and French Diplomacy in Persia, 1800-1810

French Diplomacy and the First Schleswig-Holstein Crisis

The course of French diplomatic activity during the Schleswig-Holstein crisis of 1863-64 is well known as a result of articles written some sixty years ago by Edward Driault and Pierre Muret.1 Relatively little, however, is known about France's policy toward the so-called first SchleswigHolstein crisis of 1848-50, a crisis which anticipated and set the stage for the more notable developments of 1863-64. Moreover, there seems to be little consensus among diplomatic historians as to just what r6le French diplomacy played in this complicated mid-nineteenth century diplomatic question, although most historians tend to minimize the French diplomatic effort while emphasizing the influence of England, Russia, and Sweden in bringing about a peaceable settlement.2

French Diplomacy at The Congresses of Troppau and Laibach

French Diplomacy at The Congresses of Troppau and Laibach

The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy during the War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797. By Sydney Seymour Biro. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1957. 2 vols. Pp. xvi, 1103. $15.00.)

The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy during the War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797. By Sydney Seymour Biro. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1957. 2 vols. Pp. xvi, 1103. $15.00.)

The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy during the War of the First Coalition. Sidney Seymour Biro

<i>The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy during the War of the First Coalition</i>. Sidney Seymour Biro

The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy during the War of the First Coalition, 1792-1797, by Sydney Seymour Biro

The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy during the War of the First Coalition, 1792-1797, <i>by Sydney Seymour Biro</i>

Book Reviews

AbstractBook reviewed in this article:A History of the Roman World from 30 B.C. to A.D. 138. By Edward T. Salmon. Third Edition.Mazzini. By Gaetano Salvemini. Translated from the Italian by I. M. Rawson.The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy during the War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797. By Sydney Seymour Biro.The Development of the German Public Mind. By Frederick Hertz.An Anglo‐Saxon and Celtic Bibliography (450–1087). By Wilfred Bonser.Elizabethans at Home. By Lu Emily Pearson.The Politics of English Dissent: The Religious Aspects of Liberal and Humanitarian Reform Movements from 1815 to 1848. By Raymond G. Cowherd.New England Hospitals, 1790–1833. By Leonard K. Eaton.James K. Polk, Jacksonian, 1705–1843. By Charles Grier SellersThe Role of the Supreme Court in American Government and Politics, 1835–1864. By Charles Grove Haines and Foster H. Sherwood.Charles Evans Hughes and American Democratic Statesmanship. By Dexter Perkins.The German‐Language Press in America. By Carl Wittke.American Democracy Under Pressure. By Donald C. Blaisdell.The Invasion of France and Germany, 1944–1945. By Samuel Eliot Morison.Siam Under Rama III, 1824–1851. By Walter F. Vella.The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung‐Ckih Restoration, 1862–1874. By Mary Clabaugh Wright.

The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy During the War of the First Coalition, 1792-1797

The German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy During the War of the First Coalition, 1792-1797