International Relations

How European Integration Changed French Power Politics and Transatlantic Relations

An evaluation of France’s distrust of NATO and its pursuit of military leadership in Europe

“At a time when Europe is undergoing great difficulties, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to call to mind what the European Union means for peace in Europe. […] The EU has in fact helped to bring about both the “fraternity between nations” and the “promotion of peace congresses” of which Alfred Nobel wrote in his will. The Nobel Peace Prize is therefore both deserved and necessary. We offer our congratulations.”

In 2012, through these words, the Nobel Committee awarded the European Union with its prestigious Peace Prize (The Nobel Foundation, 2012). The initial steps of European integration are generally regarded as major catalysts for change that helped transform a war-torn continent into a “security community”, as Karl Deutsch put it (Deutsch 1957; Nathan 2010, 6). Europe’s political fabric was stripped away of nationalist sentiments and unilateralism in favour of cooperation mechanisms and multilateralism.

To this day, EU citizens enjoy an unprecedented degree of freedom and prosperity guaranteed by a long-lasting period of peace – around 70 years – in which the spectre of war survives in the minds of a few elderly citizens but is understandably ignored by younger generations. Indeed, a war between current member states is deemed “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible” (Robert Schuman, 1950).

The EU and Power Politics

These premises certainly confirm that EU member states have renounced the use of military force to solve intra-European disputes, successfully scaling back the role of power politics in conflict resolution. By partially transferring their sovereignty to newly formed institutions, the founding countries created a supranational system that favours diplomacy and dialogue over hard power. Before digging into the analysis of the research question, it is essential to give a precise definition of power politics.

While some sources stress the preeminence of military assets, others include economic might in the set of instruments that a given country has at its disposal to exert influence over rival entities. Therefore, power politics can be defined as a way for states to conduct international relations where military, as well as economic tools, serve the purpose of advancing self-interest at the expenses of other actors (Merriam-Webster, 2018). This concept is central to the realist theory, which conceives international relations as a continuous struggle between states to satisfy their need of security and promote their interests in order to survive in the anarchic international system (Wohlforth 2008, 133).

Rebuilding Europe After WWII

The new European order emerged from the ashes of World War II. The consequent peace experienced over the following decades do not necessarily entail the definitive demise of power politics. Throughout the last century, some major member states have continued to use military projection and their international stature to strengthen their position both over fellow members and not. Moreover, the European Union has seen multiple conflicts rage not far from its Eastern borders. Some of these persist today in the form of frozen conflicts in which the bloc is more or less involved, although not militarily.

de Gaulle Champs Elysee
de Gaulle walks on the Champs Elysee with Winston Churchill  following the Liberation of Paris, August 1944

Greater economic interdependence and supranational law might have drastically changed the way European states interact, but the topic needs to be further explored from a historical perspective. It must be stressed that, as European integration has come to embrace the political realm as well, the role of power politics deserves a thorough analysis that also includes the study of EU foreign policy, and thus the external dimension.

The term “peace” needs to be carefully defined as well. By accepting a “minimalistic interpretation” (Pasture 2014, 8) we can easily argue that most of Europe has evolved from being a ravaged battlefield to a haven of democracy and justice, offering an excellent real-world example to democratic peace theorists. Peace, therefore, might simply result from the absence of war and violence. However, confrontations can take place without firing a single shot and by recurring to other less destructive means (nuclear deterrence, cyber-attacks, military exercises, missile defence systems setups etc.). By taking into account this dimension of power politics, for instance, the period encompassing the Cold War can hardly be considered peaceful; the weapons were cold, yet the tempers were not.

The rationale for peace-building

While it is widely accepted that European integration contributed to peace-building, academics have long argued on the rationales behind it using different theoretical frameworks, consequently reaching different conclusions. It is my opinion that a comprehensive understanding can only be achieved by considering the multiple perspectives available in the literature. Most importantly, the importance of a thematic and staged approach must be acknowledged.

The approach must be thematic because some policies, events and breakthroughs might be better explained by one theory rather than another. For instance, Haas’ theory of neo-functionalism confers special importance to supranational institutions and spillover effects. Meanwhile theorists of intergovernmentalism argue that national governments held the lead in order to advance their interests inside the European Community.

Some policies, like the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), relied on strong intergovernmental negotiations. Meanwhile, the setting up of the Monetary Union can be explained as a direct consequence of previous results in integration (spillover effect).

The staged process helps identify the best theory – or combination of theories – to read certain events in a delimited period of time. The early years of the European Community were of course characterized by the protagonism of national governments, which led to the setting up of supranational institutions in the first place. However, the period that saw the much-praised Jacques Delors guide the European Commission might best be unfolded by the institutionalist perspective and its underscoring of activism in supranational institutions.

The early stages of European integration can give us a glimpse of how power politics were still prominent at the time. France, Germany, Italy and the other member states were not fighting on battlefields any more. However, each state, whenever the occasion made it possible, tried to get the most benefits from the process.

Academics’ Approaches

Some intergovernmentalist scholars explain European integration as a way for states to rescue themselves (Milward 1992, 7). Although, this must not overshadow the importance of Monnet’s pragmatic idealism (Van Meurs et al. 2018, 63) and the founding fathers’ personal characters, distinguished by the shared universalist views and Christian values they relied upon. This is best exemplified by Schuman, De Gasperi and Adenauer’s leading roles in their respective Christian-Democratic parties (Verovšek 2017, 529).

Because of their nature as major powers, it was mostly France and – after its accession – Great Britain that continued to use power politics as a way to conduct their foreign policies (Van Meurs et al. 2018, 230). Taking into account examples from the 20th  as well as the 21st century such as the Pleven Plan (1950) and the intervention in Libya (2011), we can argue that power politics did not disappear from the European scene. Indeed, it became subtler and less dependent on material and military assets. States used the new supranational platform to advance national interests and steer negotiations and new policies in a way that would favour them over other members.

The intergovernmentalist approach that featured the early integration process can be intended as a way for states to use power politics in a new ratio that would suit the new friendlier context. France, especially, used its weight, diplomatic power and reputation to oppose any initiative that would reduce significantly its sovereignty and would put into question its supremacy in continental Europe.

The Pleven Plan

Pressures from the United States aimed at convincing France about the importance of rehabilitating Western Germany’s military capacities and embedding them into a supranational defence platform showed to be insufficient to assuage the French political establishment, which still feared a resurgence of German expansionism.

The European Defence Community (EDC), a plan proposed precisely for this aim by the then Prime Minister René Pleven, entailed some form of political union that most of the French military deemed unnecessary and dangerous, as it undermined the possibility for France to freely project its military power (Gavin 2009, 80).

Rene Pleven
Rene Pleven, former French Prime Minister from whom the Pleven Plan takes its name

General Ely was one of the few prominent figures from the army to support the plan, though only from a political perspective, as France had heavily invested in it. General Juin fiercely opposed the plan, as it would have stripped the nation of its authority to confer it to a supranational institution (ibid.).

The French officials who supported the plan were not blindly underestimating the German question; the diplomat Helvé Alphand conceived the EDC as a way for France to keep a stricter control over Germany. France, after all, could count on a larger army, and could appoint its officials in key positions (ibid.) to not let others assume a leading role. In the end, both the factions were opposing or arguing in favour of the EDC because, in their opinion, the position of France would be strengthened. Any higher ideal of European unity was not the determining factor of the sides taken; the distribution of power could not be changed or reduced to the detriment of France.

These opposing views pushed the newly appointed Prime Minister Pierre Mendès in 1954 to rethink the plan and modify some of its core provisions, devoiding it of any supranational footprint. Any reference to a federal or confederal system was eliminated, while Germany would have been the only member state to integrate its army. By losing its meaning, the plan was never adopted despite the ratification by the other national parliaments. Power politics had come to shape post-world war Europe as well.

The Fouchet Plan

Other shows of force in the European arena concerned the Fouchet Plan and the negotiations over the CAP in the sixties, a source of grim debates among member states since its inception. The French President General de Gaulle played an important role in both events. When he came to power, it was immediately clear that he would try to assert French supremacy on the continent.“Europe”, he said, “is the means for France to recover what it ceased to be after Waterloo: first in the world” (Vanke 2001, 96).

De Gaulle’s objective was to drive Europe away from the influence of the USA and the Soviet Union and create the sufficient premises for France to lead European integration under its conditions and leadership (ibid.). Supranational institutions like the Commission and the European Parliament, designed by his predecessors, were seen as obstacles to overcome in order to reach the goal. The plan, named after the French ambassador Christian Fouchet, conceived a loose “political union of states” grounded on a solid intergovernmental structure that would include a security dimension as well.

The French proposal ultimately failed due to strong opposition from the Netherlands and Belgium, who favoured an Atlanticist approach and feared French supremacy (Dinan 2014, 101). The Dutch opposition strategy, led by the foreign minister Joseph Luns, consisted of linking the accession of the United Kingdom (the so called prealable englias/English prerequisite) to the new political union.

Indeed, conflicting views revolved around Britain. The French opposed British membership over concerns of excessive influence from NATO, de facto controlled by the US, on European affairs. Meanwhile, the Dutch had hoped since the signing of the Treaty of Rome that the UK would become a member to counter the early Franco-German axis. Nonetheless, Dutch opposition was so firm that the Netherlands would have even accepted the setting-up of the political union provided that they would not become part of it (Vanke 2001, 108).

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

Like the Fouchet Plan, some academics go as far as to say that the confrontation over the CAP in 1965 was deliberately pushed forward by the French, especially from the Gaullist faction, to shape the European Economic Community (EEC) in a way that would suit more their interests (Newhouse 1967, 21). However, according to the international historian N. Piers Ludlow, the conflict was primarily spurred by Germany, Italy and the Netherlands to jointly challenge the supremacy that France had assumed in the first decade of European integration (Ludlow 1999, 233).

EU Flag on Crops
The EU flag superimposed on some crops to symbolise the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

It can be argued that the European Community was first and foremost a French project that would have never been realized if the French had not taken the initiative (ibid.). All the six founders undoubtedly gained advantages from the making of the customs union and were well aware that no further progress in integration would have taken place without France leading the operation. This acknowledgement reduced their negotiating power (ibid. 236). The Germans especially wanted to avoid the dissolution of the Community at all costs, as it served as a major tool to regain legitimacy on the international scene.

The possibility of such dissolution emerged in 1965 when the six failed to agree on details concerning the CAP. de Gaulle encountered strong resistance over the policy, which was clearly favouring the French agricultural industry at the expense of the other states’ finances. The three “rebels” felt they had given enough concessions to satisfy French demands. Italy, for instance, was the biggest net contributor to the common budget despite being the poorest of the six (ibid. 237).

Confident of its position, General de Gaulle withdrew the French permanent representative at the EEC from its post in Brussels and decided that no French delegation would be sent to the next Council and COREPER meetings. The crisis ultimately led to the so-called Luxembourg Compromise. It inflicted a fatal blow to the supranational character of the community as member states acquired veto power over matters considered too important for national interests, heavily reducing the importance of Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) in the decision-making process. According to the French politician and economist Robert Marjolin, the compromise “consecrated the victory of the Gaullist conceptions in the matter of European institutions” (Marjolin 1989, 347).

De Gaulle and the French Withdrawal from NATO

de Gaulle’s attempts to restore France’s grandeur also concerned the broader transatlantic relations. In 1966, in a move that shocked his allies, the general announced France’s withdrawal from the military command of NATO. The decision perfectly suited de Gaulle’s conception of international relations, a strongly realist one, that marginalized the role of ideology and focused entirely on the balance of power (Martin 2011, 233).

He had credibly declared himself anti-Communist before, but as his scepticism over US presence on the continent became more marked, he sought a softer relationship with the Soviet Union that would make space for a strategy of détente as opposed to US containment.

De Gaulle conceived the transatlantic alliance in a different way compared to his European partners, less reluctant to rely on the American leadership to counterbalance Soviet influence. Before leaving NATO, France had already halted its participation to common military activities, creating the premises for the treaty to be considered a “14 + 1” alliance more than a compact bloc (ibid. 235).

French national sovereignty was paramount, and any move towards transatlantic integration of military capabilities had to be rejected. This is the reason behind France’s refusal to take part in the Multilateral Force project (MLF), aimed at integrating the nuclear capabilities of all three major NATO powers. Nuclear independence became a primary objective as de Gaulle would not accept the Anglo-Saxon supremacy and prerogative on this matter. Furthermore, he went as far as to side with the Soviet Union to oppose German membership in the MLF project (ibid.).

The Élysée Treaty between Germany and France signed in 1963 corroborated the Franco-German axis but ran parallel with the two countries’ opposing views on transatlantic relations; despite Adenauer’s warm welcoming of such treaty, he also interpreted it as a way for de Gaulle to further distance France from NATO and embed a new security system in the axis. When the next year de Gaulle persisted with his stance by offering the new German president Ludwig Erhard a “veiled ultimatum” on what side to pick, Adenauer’s fears were confirmed (ibid. 237). However, Germany would eventually choose to affirm its loyalty to Washington.

De Gaulle’s ultimate goal was to free the European continent, stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals” (ibid.234), of the tension stemming from the Cold War. To him, the United States was responsible for feeding the flames of the conflict and only a European security system under French leadership and supervision would be able to restore some balance. History, though, would betray him.

France in the Cold War

Throughout the following 30 years of Cold War, France would uphold its distinct position and try to emerge as the third alternative to the bipolarity imprinted on the world stage by the two warring superpowers. Despite de Gaulle’s positioning on the right of the political spectrum, it would be the socialist President François Mitterrand more than anyone to keep afloat the General’s tenets of national independence and scepticism over the transatlantic alliance. France witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the End of the Cold War under his presidency, in the eighties and early nineties, when NATO’s purpose was put into question and a reform of Europe’s defence structure seemed necessary (Menon 1995, 22).

World leaders at the 1982 G7 Summit
Margaret Thatcher (UK Prime Minister), Ronald Reagan (US President), Francois Mitterrand (French President) and Helmut Schmidt (German Chancellor) at the 1982 G7 Summit in Versailles

After de Gaulle’s departure, the semi-presidential system which characterized the Fifth Republic laid the ground for institutional conflicts between the President and the Prime Minister over who had to be in control of foreign policy. Mitterrand feared that NATO would further push for an integrationist policy, eventually including the political dimension. The prime minister Édouard Balladur instead, represented the Atlanticist faction in the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), which envisioned a rapprochement with the alliance. Yet, France’s official position continued to come out as ambiguous and distrust mounted from both sides.

An official from the US declared that if “it wasn’t for the French, we might be able to accept the assurances that a new European security entity would be part of a trans-Atlantic partnership, but on this issue, we don’t trust the French” (ibid. 24). Indeed, France urged the other European allies to come together and embrace a common defence structure; nevertheless, her actions didn’t go much further than creating a Franco-German brigade in agreement with Chancellor Helmut Kohl (Brown 2013, 291).

With all the major member states enclosed in the Atlantic framework, France was the only country ardently pushing for a European security arm that could challenge NATO leadership. Paradoxically, perhaps out of awareness that nothing would be accomplished at the European level, France also recognized the importance of the alliance and supported several US-led initiatives (Menon 1995, 27).

France’s Re-entry into NATO and Libyan Intervention

It was only in 2009 that, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarcozy, France re-joined NATO. This move followed years in which France’s attempts to shape an independent European security policy had slowed down.

Some success had been achieved in 1993 with the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, which institutionalized the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) as the second of the three pillars forming the new European Union; however, the Petersberg Declaration issued the previous year had made clear that EU’s foreign policy activities would have only included crisis management, leaving the actual military tasks to NATO (Van Meurs et al. 2018, 231).

By joining the Alliance, Sarcozy recognized that France’s interests would thenceforth be better pursued within the transatlantic framework. In 2012 a report by the once strongly anti-NATO French politician Hubert Védrine stated that indeed France could not count on a European security apparatus and would be worse off out of NATO (ibid. 292). The country’s role in the transatlantic alliance was first tested during the 2011 military intervention in Libya. The operation exemplified the persistence of power politics in the European landscape and, most likely, of de Gaulle’s ghost in French foreign policy (Brown 2013, 296).

French flag above tank in Africa
The French flag is flown from a tank in Africa

Approved by the UN Security Council, the military intervention was primarily led by France and Great Britain to stop general Gaddafi from committing violence against his people. In 2010 pacific protests had erupted throughout the Arab world, especially by the hand of young citizens, and the strongmen in power did not restrain from using violence. However, other reasons might have led France to intervene.

Intervention in Libya and the Impact on European Relations

As outlined by the intelligence platform Stratfor, the event translated into an indirect and silent confrontation between Italy and France. Since the establishment of its old colony, Italy has always considered Libya to be extremely important for its national interests, with regular energy supply and stability as primary objectives.

France’s assertiveness during the crisis ended up convincing the Italians that its role risked being stripped away by its transalpine allies, especially through new potential energy contracts signed by the French company Total at the detriment of the Italian ENI. In fact, responding to clarifications over the future of the Italian business in Libya, the Deputy Chairman of the Libyan National Transition Council Hafiz al Ghogha said that this would depend on “the support that the various European countries have offered the grassroots uprising” (Stratfor 2011, 11).

Before the conflict started, France was also the most important European arms supplier for Tripoli, but its role was being challenged by Rome with deals worth more than one billion dollars in 2010 (ibid. 8). Today, eight years after the military intervention, the confrontation is still ongoing:  President Emmanuel Macron is tacitly backing General Khalifa Haftar, which controls the eastern region of Cyrenaica, while Italy supports the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli.

France’s renewed activism over the last years, in Lybia as well as in Mali, can be read, from a broader perspective, as a way to reassert its role as major European military power in contrast with German supremacy over the economic sphere (ibid. 7). Eventually, the crisis proved the complete disunity of EU’s member states in the field of foreign policy.

Conclusion

With the exception of the Algerian War of Independence, legally speaking an intra-European civil war (Pasture 2015, 2; Hansen & Jonsson 2014), the process of European integration has brought long-lasting peace over most of the continent’s territory. The Franco-German robust friendship represents the most successful achievement of the process. However, we must avoid resorting to teleological explanations. While historical thinking might lead us to conceive a linear progression of history pointing to a predetermined end, we cannot exclude the repetition of events, or the occurrence of new ones, possibly caused by multiple contingent factors (ibid. 8).

Macron and Merkel Armistice
Macron and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, embrace at the Centenary of Armistice Day in Paris, November 2018

The EU immediate neighbouring regions host a few ongoing conflicts (Nagorno-Karabakh, Eastern Ukraine, Libya) which threaten the geopolitical stability of the continent and affect intra-European dynamics. As shifts in the transatlantic relationships became clear after Trump’s trade tariffs against the bloc, the EU finds itself at a crossroads between departing from its status of “economic giant, political dwarf and military worm,” as in the words of former Belgian foreign minister Mark Eyskens and remaining anchored to a stagnating context fuelled by its leaders’ empty declarations. Yet, as demonstrated previously by exploring France’s historical behaviour, power politics have triggered and found a way into European integration since its inception, with countries today still reluctant to give up more sovereignty.

Supranational institutions have acquired a life of their own, but intergovernmentalism still persists consistently. President Macron and Chancellor Angela Merkel have recently restated the question of a European army, but chances are that nothing tangible will come out of it, at least in the short and medium terms. Nonetheless, this proves once again that the military dimension is still central to the biggest economic bloc risen out of the ashes of war; further shifts in the international order could challenge the current dynamics and systems of alliances, leading the EU to assume a more proactive role in the new multipolar world, perhaps by overtaking NATO’s task, as hoped by France, or acting as a complement to it, as favoured by Germany.

 

Bibliography

 

An earlier version of this article was originally written for the University of Leiden. 

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Bruno Formicola

Former policy trainee at the European Parliament. Master graduate in International Relations and European Union Studies at the University of Leiden, co-founder of My Country? Europe. Information junkie.

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