France in the New Europe

The remarkable developments in Europe since late 1989-German unification, the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the expectation of large-scale withdrawals of Soviet and American forces-have upset long-standing assumptions of French security policy. Stable reference points have been displaced by new risks and uncertainties. Past preoccupations about the future of Russia, Germany and Europe's political order and institutions have become more pressing and more acute.

Despite internal political problems, French officials are attempting to devise policies that would reconcile competing national aims. But the international developments of the past year may make it increasingly difficult for French politicians to maintain the national consensus on defense that has coalesced since the late 1970s. Official assertions of confidence in the complementarity and coherence of France's policies appear to mask important unresolved dilemmas and underlying anxieties.

Since the 1960s, French security policy has been based on the following premises:

-a large U.S. nuclear and conventional force presence in West Germany, as part of an extensive integrated alliance structure, providing a de facto forward glacis for France's protection;

-a West Germany anchored in NATO, dependent on allied security commitments and particularly interested in obtaining French cooperation regarding West European economic integration, and within and outside other multilateral political, economic and military institutions; and

-a stable and predictable framework of East-West relations in which France could maintain a special status with respect to NATO's integrated military structure, emphasizing its independence, autonomy and freedom of action.

On the basis of these premises, General Charles de Gaulle pursued during his presidency (1958-69) policy objectives that were already discernible during the Fourth Republic (1946-58) and established what has remained France's basic security posture since its withdrawal in 1966 from NATO's integrated military structure. De Gaulle's legacy has provided the touchstone for consensus on French security policy since the late 1970s, when the Socialists endorsed the maintenance of an independent nuclear deterrent posture.