General de Gaulle's negative response to Britain's two attempts to enter the Common Market in the sixties, along with his deep-seated suspicion of supranational organisations, have tended to tarnish any European image he may have hoped to carve out for himself. Indeed the most commonly accepted view on these two matters is that they were fundamental to his attitude towards Europe. Edward Beddington-Behrens voiced this opinion perfectly in 1966: 'There is little doubt that his veto of Britain's entry was the first stage of his attack upon the European idea as such'. [1] De Gaulle's three presidential successors certainly appeared to be moving France slowly but surely towards participation in a Europe more politically integrated than he would have wished. Under Pompidou France finally accepted Britain's entry into the Common Market, along with that of Ireland and Denmark, in 1972. Under Giscard d'Estaing came the European Monetary System (1979), the election of the European parliament by direct suffrage (1979) and the admission of Greek membership to the EEC (1981). Under Mitterrand came the further expansion of EEC membership with the entry of Spain and Portugal (1986), the signing of the Schengen agreement (1990) and the Treaty of Maastricht (1991) by EC leaders and the introduction of the Single Market (1993).
Events in the nineties however have perhaps given a new perspective to de Gaulle's own vision of Europe: the break-up of the USSR (1991) and its replacement by an association of nations (the Commonwealth of Independent States), the disappearance of the Communist bloc, the collapse of Communism itself, the tepid if not reluctant acceptance of Maastricht by many citizens and politicians of the EC nations, the disturbing resurgence of nationalism, religious fanaticism and racism in a Europe which is becoming increasingly multi-racial and multi-cultural, the reunification of Germany (1990) with all its repercussions, the recent suspension of ERM and the resulting postponement of monetary union plans and the apparent impotence of the EC bloc in the face of the civil wars in former Yugoslavia. The question of whether these events prove the need for more or less political integration in Europe remains to be answered. If the dream (or nightmare) of a federal Europe centred on the current fifteen EU member states is begining to appear less imminent, if not remote, is there a viable alternative? Is Mrs Thatcher's Bruges speech (1988), with its outright condemnation of European federation to become the touchstone of those who no longer consider Maastricht to be a realistic proposition? Could there be a resurrection of Mr Gorbachev's idea of 'the common European house' (1989)? At all events, as the queue for membership of the EU becomes longer, it is obvious that the new union, whether it embraces Maastricht fully or only partially, cannot avoid the modifications which further expansion will bring about.
This brief examination of de Gaulle's vision of Europe focusses on what he wrote on this topic in his Mémoires. In his pre-war writings geographical concepts, and in paticular France's geographical vulnerability in the north and north-east, provided him with a constant theme. He totally subscribed to Napoleon's adage, which he quotes in Vers l'armée de métier (1934, p.17): 'The politics of a state are in its geography'. This book is one of the author's two prophetic works (the other was Le Fil de l'épée published two years before) concentrating on the German military menace and how it could be thwarted. Europe does not emerge as a major theme in his writings until the third volume of his Mémoires de guerre, Le Salut (written mainly between 1956 and 1958 and published in 1959)), which covers the period 1944-1946. This volume discloses the author's concerns relating to the reconstruction of post-war Europe. With little or no evidence to support his claim, he predicts that growing discontent with Soviet domination will induce the peoples of Eastern bloc nations eventually to throw off the yoke of their oppressive totalitarian regimes: 'There is no regime which, in the long run can stand up to the national will' (p. 62). This conviction leads him to believe in the eventual dismantling of the East -West division of Europe and to the concept of a unified continent. He reports a conversation with Churchill in November 1944 in which he (de Gaulle) calls for the creation of an 'association' and 'an organization of nations which would be something other than the squabbling ground of America and Russia' (p. 68).
Quoting from his own speech made in the French Consultative Assembly on 22 November 1944, prior to his meeting with Stalin in Moscow in December, he speaks of 'that fertile structure which a united Europe would amount to' (p. 72). After the war, in October 1945, de Gaulle made a tour of the French zone of occupied Germany and was horrified by the scenes of destruction and misery he witnessed. In a rare expression of emotion, he comments: 'I felt my European heart bleeding' (p. 247). The message is clear: the horror of two world wars must not recur and the only way to avoid them is for Europe to unite. But by Europe he meant the whole of Europe, as he emphasizes in a later chapter with reference to a speech made in Brussels in October 1945: 'I proclaim the hope that an association of all the peoples of Europe could bring to the whole world' (p. 265).
By June 1958 when de Gaulle resumed power after twelve years mostly in the political wilderness, a considerable amount of water had flowed under the European bridge: Churchill's call at Zurich for a 'United States of Europe' (1946), the Marshall plan (1947), Kominform (1947), the Treaty of Brussels (1948), COMECON (1949), the Atlantic Pact and NATO (1949), the creation of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (1949), the Cold War, the rise and fall of European Defence Community (1954-1956), the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) , the Treaty of Rome (1957) and the birth of the Common Market (1958). In his Mémoires d'espoir (written in 1969-70) he approves of the economic and commercial developements (apart from the ECSC): 'on taking over, I straightaway embraced the Common Market, not only because of our position as an agricultural country, but also because of the fillip it would give our industry' (p.172).
He is highly critical on the other hand of defence policies which 'subject France to the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxons' (p.16). As these unfinished memoirs only cover the period 1958-1962, France's ultimate withdrawal from NATO in 1966 is not mentioned by the author, but his intention to withdraw is clearly hinted at along with an account of his preliminary measures (the memorandum to President Eisenhower in September 1958 and the withdrawal of the French Mediterranean fleet from NATO control in March 1959).
What then was de Gaulle's European policy in 1958 according to his Mémoires d'espoir ? It is boldly set out in the opening chapter: 'To make France the champion of a wholly united European Europe' (p.25). Bearing in mind the solidity of the iron curtain at the time, this aim must have appeared utopian both in 1958 and in 1970 when this volume was published. How can such apparent utopianism be reconciled with de Gaulle's obsessive belief in the 'realities' of the world scene? Simply by remembering that ideologies and regimes counted for little in de Gaulle's thinking. Geography, historical determinism and racial and cultural affinities were the key factors in his definition of Europe. In the fifth chapter of the Mémoires d'espoir , entitled 'L'Europe', he quotes from his press conference of 5 September 1960 and accuses the federalists of being the dreamers:
[we must] proceed, not by following dreams, but on the basis of realities. Now, what are the realities of Europe? What are the pillars on which we can build it? If we are honest, we must admit that these pillars are the states of Europe [. . . ] because each state indeed has its own identity, its own history, its own language, its tragedies, triumphs and ambitions (pp.210 -211).
Earlier in the same chapter he revealed:
For my part, I have always been conscious, and never more so than today, of what the nations which people it [Europe] have in common. All belonging to the same white race, having the same Christian origins, the same way of life, linked to each other since time immemorial by innumerable contacts in the realms of thought, art, science, politics and trade, it suits their very nature to form a whole, with their own character and organization in relation to the rest of the world (p.185).
He goes on to talk of earlier would-be unifiers of Europe: the Roman emperors, Charlemagne, Charles the Fifth, Napoleon and Hitler. While their aims had some virtues, their methods were flawed: constraint and centralization led to their undoing. They attempted 'a fusion of peoples' instead of 'a rapprochement'.
To achieve de Gaulle's vision of 'a European Europe' embracing all nations 'between the Atlantic and the Urals', to use one of his favourite phrases, any form of 'intégration' or ' fédération' must be shunned. The key requisites must rather be 'concertation' , 'entente' and 'confédération' . The independence, the sovereignty and the identity of each constituent nation of a unified Europe must be preserved. Hence de Gaulle's derisive references to: 'the illusory talk of integration which was rife before my return to power' (p.196), 'the aeropagus pontificating in Luxembourg' which 'was powerless to legislate' (p.197) and 'the dream of a supranational Europe' (p.198).
The General's attempt to provide a practical solution to the problem of how to achieve European union was the Fouchet Plan, first drafted in November 1961 and revised in March 1962. As most abortive projects it has been assigned to history's dustbin. It is chiefly remembered today for its association with de Gaulle's 'volapük' outburst in his press conference of 15 May 1962 which provoked the resignation of five of his government's ministers. The Plan itself is not discussed in the Mémoires d'espoir; it was presumably the author's intention to cover this episode in the final chapter of the unfinished second volume ( L'Effort). The only allusion to the Plan bitterly comments: 'and so the union of the Continent, proclaimed as necessary by the ruling circles of our European partners and by our own cliques, will ultimately come up against a barrier of reservations, exegeses and counterbids, when I try to clear the way for it' (p.208-209). The plan would have instituted a Council of Heads of State and Government controlling defence, foreign policy and scientific and cultural affairs. At a secondary level a number of permanent intergovernmental commissions would have been responsible for political, cultural, economic and military affairs. The whole organization would have been supported by a permanent secretariat. It failed, not on account of the issues of integration or supranationality it raised, but because Belgium and Holland would not negotiate on these issues before British entry into the Common Market. While it is true that the Fouchet Plan might appear today as a somewhat cautious and tentative proposal, it must be accepted that 'de Gaulle's initiative on European political union', to quote Lois Pattison de Ménil, 'was a cornerstone of his foreign policy'. [2] Article 16 in the Plan made provision for a review of the ensuing Treaty of Union three years after its signing, to consider measures for strengthening the Union. For the author of the Mémoires d'espoir it was a first step and not a last word: 'if Rome was not built in a day, it is in the nature of things that the construction of Europe requires prolonged efforts' (p.209).
Having failed to impose his own concept of a tightly-knit Europe des patries on his EEC partners, de Gaulle was to resort to his policy of establishing a Paris-Bonn axis. Franco-German relations had always constituted the fundamental European issue in all his writings both pre-war and post-war. In Konrad Adenauer, the West German Chancellor, de Gaulle found a symbol of the new Germany with which France could be reconciled and with which she could ensure a peaceful Europe. He describes this man and what he stood for in three magnificent long sentences, the first of which reads:
This Rhinelander was imbued with an awareness of the complementary nature of the relationship between the Gauls and the Germans (Germains) and which, long ago, enriched the presence of the Roman Empire on the Rhine, brought good fortune to the Franks and glory to Charlemagne, justified the creation of Austrasia, formed a basis for the good relations between the King of France and the Electors, fired Germany in the heat of the Revolution, inspired Goethe, Heine, Madame de Staël, Victor Hugo, and in spite of the fierce conflicts which set the two peoples against each other, never ceased to seek a path and grope a way through the darkness (p.188).
This idealized portrait of Franco-German relations may well have been in the eyes of the author, an exemplar of a much more extensive, unified Europe of the future, a Europe stretching 'from Iceland as far as Istanbul, and from Gibraltar to the Urals' (Mémoires de guerre , vol. 3), composed of countries which are very different but together could form a better whole and which respect and admire each other's culture and ideas.
De Gaulle's courting of West Germany (culminating in the Franco-German Treaty of Cooperation of January 1963) offers a striking contrast to his vetoing of Britain's application for membership of the Common Market in 1962. The topic of de Gaulle's relations with Britain provides both the Mémoires de guerre and the Mémoires d'espoir with one of their richest and most constant themes. His continual use of the term 'Anglo-Saxons' with reference to the British and the Americans betrays his fundamental attitude: Britain is inextricably linked to the United States, historically, culturally, linguistically, economically and politically. Hence Britain's cold-shouldering of the Common Market when it was formed. Both history and geography, two other favourite themes of the author of the Mémoires, are invoked to justify his conviction that Britain has never favoured any form of European union, with or without her own participation:
How can one be surprised that Britain is fundamentally opposed to this enterprise, knowing that on account of her geography, and consequently on account of her politics, she has never accepted either that the Continent should unite or that she should join it? One could even say that in a way, Europe's last eight centuries of history are encapsulated by this observation. (Mémoires d'espoir, p.203)
Hence de Gaulle's refusal to believe in the sincerity of Macmillan's new-found enthusiasm for participation in the EEC in 1961, which contrasts so blatantly with the British Prime Minister's hostility to it in 1958:
The Common Market is the Continental System all over again! Britain cannot accept it! Please give it up! (Ibid., p.203)
Britain then, remains for de Gaulle a permanent American satellite, condemned to her offshore isolation by both her geography and her history. Any discussion of de Gaulle's concept of Europe must ultimately return to the inescapable fact that he considered himself first a Frenchman and only secondly a European. Hence his nationalistic belief that 'to achieve any unification of Europe, states are the only meaningful elements' (Ibid., p.205). Anyone, in his opinion, who believes that 'European nations, forged over the centuries by countless pains and efforts, each with its own geography, history, language, traditions and institutions, could stop being themselves and form a single entity is suffering from the profoundest of illusions'. A quarter of a century after these words were written the controversy intensifies.
Quotations from the writings of de Gaulle have been translated by the author of this article. The pages mentioned refer to the following French editions:
Vers l'armée de métier (Paris: Livre de Poche /Plon, 1973).
Mémoires de guerre, Vol.3, Le Salut (Paris: Presses Pocket/Plon, 1980).
Mémoires d'espoir, Vols. 1 and 2, Le Renouveau/L'Effort (Paris: Presses Pocket/Plon, 1980).
1.
Edward Beddington-Behrens, Is there any choice? Britain must join
Europe (London: Penguin, 1966), p.19.
2.
Lois Pattison de Ménil, Who speaks for Europe? The Vision
of Charles de Gaulle (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1977),
p.64.