I

In his succinct study, Michael Creswell examines the origins of the 1954 Paris accords which amounted to a political-security settlement for western Europe. With the end of the occupation statute, a newly sovereign West Germany would be integrated into NATO, while the British and the Americans would maintain a permanent military presence on the continent. The bulk of the book recounts the torturous history of the European Defence Community (EDC), a project for an integrated west European army whose final death in the summer of 1954 prompted the final round of negotiations that produced the Paris accords. Generally speaking, the EDC is not viewed as a success story for the French. Although beginning life in 1950 as a French proposal (the Pleven Plan), the EDC as it emerged in 1952 after extended negotiations proved to be deeply divisive and increasingly unpopular in France, where the prospect of a rearmed Germany provoked much disquiet. Indeed, it was the French who dealt the fatal blow to the EDC when, in August 1954, the National Assembly effectively refused to ratify the project. Having killed the EDC, the French seemingly had little choice but to endorse its replacement.Footnote ⁶ It is this standard view of France's role in the EDC's history that Creswell is determined to overturn. Contrary to appearances, he insists, key French leaders such as Georges Bidault strongly supported German rearmament. Convinced that the Soviet Union posed the most dangerous threat to France and to Western Europe, they deemed a German contribution to collective defence essential – a contribution that implied a rearmed Germany. Bidault, however, could not openly say as much because French public and political opinion viscerally opposed German rearmament. As a result, French leaders pursued a dual strategy, attempting to delay German rearmament until French opinion was better prepared while striving to influence developments so that the final result would meet France's security needs and assuage public fears. The combination of delaying tactics and hard bargaining proved extremely effective, and the Paris accords pretty much gave the French what they wanted. Echoing Hitchcock, Creswell concludes that ‘France fashioned the pace and conditions of Germany's rearmament’ and, in so doing, ‘played a crucial international role after 1945 and to a significant degree shaped the Cold War system in Western Europe.’ (pp. 166, 165)

There is much to praise in this study. Having consulted government and private records in five countries, Creswell provides the closest thing we have to an archivally based international history of the EDC that is sensitive to multiple national perspectives.Footnote ⁷ Regarding France in particular, the study highlights the role of the military, a neglected actor in studies of French foreign policy. As Creswell recounts, growing concern about the effects of a European army on France's own army prompted French military chiefs to intervene in the political debate, helping to bring about the EDC's defeat in parliament.Footnote ⁸ But for all its strengths, the book suffers from several problems. When it came to threat perceptions, while there is no doubt that the possibility of Soviet aggression factored increasingly in French calculations, especially from 1947–8 onwards, it does not necessarily follow that decision-makers were preoccupied with the Soviet Union to the exclusion of Germany. Creswell repeatedly affirms that this was so, but provides little supporting evidence. Given the studies of Ulrich Lappenküper, Geneviève Maelstaf and Hitchcock among others, which document the existence of lingering fears of a resurgent Germany in French political and official circles, Creswell needs to provide a more sustained argument to make his case.Footnote ⁹ Equally to the point, it is not clear why it must be one or the other and not both: in pressing for various limits on German power as well as for clearer military commitments from Washington and London, were the French not, in fact, seeking the dual containment of Germany and the Soviet Union?Footnote ¹⁰ Also problematic is the treatment of the relationship between foreign policy and domestic politics. Creswell views the latter largely as a hindrance to policy, as something that had to be sidestepped or manipulated by statesmen. But domestic politics could also be an asset, enabling French leaders to exact concessions from their allies as the price for domestic political approval of any agreement.Footnote ¹¹ More importantly, domestic politics and foreign policy cannot easily be separated in a study of the Fourth Republic, a political regime in which governments were direct emanations of parliament and completely dependent on it. This meant not only that domestic political calculations were omnipresent, but also that the political divisions within parliament were reproduced within a government, often making it difficult to speak of a single, clearly defined French policy. This was especially true of the EDC, which produced deep splits both between and within political parties.

But perhaps the biggest problem with Creswell's study is the portrayal of the Paris accords as a clear-cut French victory. Brushed aside is the deep-seeded aversion of French politicians and officials to a rearmed Germany. And here Bidault was no exception. When in 1948 Konrad Adenauer spoke to fellow European Christian democrats of the possibility of an integrated European army with German participation, Bidault vigorously rejected the very idea of German rearmament, let alone a German army, warning of the multiple dangers involved.Footnote ¹² The French only concocted the Pleven Plan under considerable British and especially US pressure to rearm Germany following the outbreak of the Korean War. A principal purpose of the plan, moreover, was to prevent what eventually occurred: the creation of an independent German army and Germany's entry into NATO.Footnote ¹³ True, the Paris accords contained important guarantees for France – guarantees which reflected the fact that the French could not simply be dictated to. Nevertheless, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, in the case of German rearmament, the French made the best of a bad situation. Having failed to convince Washington to put off rearming Germany until the Greek Calends, successive French governments adopted a variety of negotiating tactics: pleading, cajoling, threatening, temporising and bargaining. The effectiveness of such tactics is certainly worth underscoring. But so too are the very real limits to what could be achieved. Bowing to the inevitable, the French in the end accepted the Paris accords not with satisfaction but reluctantly and begrudgingly. As Mollet, a strong EDC supporter, admitted, his vote to ratify the accords was the ‘most painful [one] of my political life’.Footnote ¹⁴

While Creswell focuses on Europe, Mark Lawrence directs the reader's attention to Asia in his study of the origins of the US decision in 1950 to aid the French war effort in Indo-China. This momentous decision, Lawrence argues, was the product of a lengthy process of tripartite interaction between France, Britain and the United States. Determined to hold on to their colonies in Asia, the French after 1945 quickly found themselves engaged in a war in Indo-China that, when combined with their commitments in Europe and at home, proved beyond their means. As a result, the French had two choices: to seek a political solution which meant negotiating with the Viet Minh; or to ‘internationalise’ the war, which above all meant securing US financial and military backing. For those politicians and officials who favoured the second option, the most pressing task was to overcome Washington's reluctance to get involved in a faraway colonial war. The Americans thus had to be persuaded that the war was not an anti-colonial struggle but a battle between moderate Asian nationalism, represented by France and its Indo-Chinese allies, and communism. Here, Britain could play a critical role as an influential ally of the United States and a leading regional power in Asia. Drawing on an impressive array of archival sources, Lawrence recounts in convincing detail how the French succeeded. In each of the three countries there existed groups of officials in favour of US intervention who were able to defeat their internal opponents in part because they could call on the support of like-minded groups in the other two countries. Collectively, these groups not only recast the conflict ‘as a Cold War battleground’, but also excluded alternative views – and thus alternative policies (p. 9). The result, Lawrence concludes, ‘must be rated a remarkable [French] success’. ‘French competency and consistency in connection with Vietnam’, he adds, ‘suggests the need for a new understanding of the French role in crafting the postwar international order’ (pp. 285, 13).

At first glance, Lawrence's claims regarding French achievements might seem exaggerated. After all, given Washington's growing concern about Soviet ambitions even before the outbreak of the Korean War, was it really that difficult to convince the Americans to view the Indo-China conflict through a cold war prism? Yet if the emerging cold war certainly offered a promising context, it did not guarantee the success of French efforts. In the mid to late 1950s the French would fail to win concrete US support for the Algerian war despite concerted efforts by Paris to present the stakes involved in cold war terms.Footnote ¹⁵ But if Lawrence is right to underscore France's achievement in 1950, one wishes that he had carried the story forward in time, for it is worth considering the price that Washington exacted for its support in Indo-China. During 1950–4 the Americans provided considerable military and financial aid, which, together with the use of Indo-Chinese (associated states) troops, allowed the French to wage war increasingly on the cheap. Attached to this aid, however, were growing numbers of US political, economic and military personnel – personnel who increasingly acted independently of French authorities in Indo-China.Footnote ¹⁶ At a higher policy level, moreover, growing dependence on US aid meant that Paris could not easily ignore US views on the war. As the fighting dragged on, French aims, partly under pressure from Washington, which hoped to undermine local communist support by championing moderate Vietnamese nationalism, evolved from the reimposition of colonial rule to ever-expanding autonomy within the larger French union. The result was more than a little ironic: France, a colonial power, found itself waging a colonial war to put an end to colonialism in Indo-China. Having initially sought to exploit US fears for their own benefit, the French risked becoming an instrument of US cold war policy in Asia.

Creswell and Lawrence both insist that France largely got what it wanted – hence the success of French policy. Lawrence's study is the more convincing of the two, partly because it ends before the full price of US aid became clear. But if Creswell's study is less persuasive, its focus on the EDC is a welcome one, not least because it directs attention to the innovative aspects of French policy. Although its military feasibility can be questioned, the European army project was nevertheless a bold answer to a difficult problem: Germany's integration into an Atlantic security system. It is often forgotten, moreover, that the EDC was accompanied by the European Political Community (EPC), a project to endow Europe with a federalist political structure. If one purpose of the project was to facilitate the EDC's ratification by the French parliament, the EPC (like the EDC) also testifies to the ability of Fourth Republic governments to conceive of creative solutions to Europe's post-war political, economic and security difficulties.Footnote ¹⁷ External pressure, however, constituted a necessary (but not sufficient) precondition for this creativity: pushed by their allies to adapt, French governments abandoned their initial rejection of German rearmament in favour of a more constructive approach.Footnote ¹⁸ Interestingly, this dynamic was less present in Algeria, where France's allies exerted far less influence due to their refusal fully to support the French war effort. Relatively free to determine policy, successive governments in Paris proved unable to resolve the contradictions underpinning l'Algérie française, allowing them to fester until they imploded and destroyed the regime.

II

The next two books under review focus more specifically on US–French relations. In his study of US economic and military aid to France from 1938 to 1960, Gérard Bossuat shows that the problems began for Paris as soon as the war ended, when Washington abruptly cut off Lend-Lease aid. Confronted with a desperate post-war financial and economic situation, the French were compelled to turn to the Americans once again for help, negotiating the 1946 Blum–Byrnes accord, which included a loan of US$650 million. This sum, however, proved entirely inadequate, which explains the alacrity with which France accepted Marshall Plan aid two years later, despite the heavy price attached. Indeed, echoing his earlier work on US aid and European unity, Bossuat underscores just how onerous Washington's conditions were: an important say in French budgetary and currency policies; an intrusive presence in French ports, administration and even certain firms; the abandonment of an independent policy towards Germany; and France's integration into the US-designed international political and economic order.Footnote ¹⁹ Yet France, he hastens to add, was by no means ‘enslaved’ to the United States (p. 185). Instead, the French and, in particular, Jean Monnet (the hero of Bossuat's study) pursued a long-term strategy aimed at trading short-term dependence for long-term independence. US aid was used to help modernise France's economy and society, thereby laying the basis for what Bossuat's terms the Fifth Republic's successful ‘affirmation of national independence’ (p. 230).

But the French also managed to avoid dependence in the short term. Despite US demands for greater liberalisation, France continued to develop its own social-economic model, one which Bossuat describes a little vaguely (and perhaps anachronistically) as a compromise between planning and neo-liberalism (pp. 181, 251). Similarly, on the issue of European unity, while Washington strongly encouraged it, insisting for example on the creation of a European organisation to administer Marshall Plan funds, Bossuat insists that neither the Schuman Plan nor the treaties of Rome were the products of US pressure. In both cases the arrangements arrived at responded to the needs of the countries involved and especially those of France. Keen proponents of modernisation, French officials understood that it required integrating France more fully into the international economy; but officials also believed that the opening of French markets to competition should occur gradually and be accompanied by safeguards – safeguards that France alone could not provide. Interestingly, as Bossuat recounts, the French initially looked to the British, proposing an Anglo-French partnership that would encompass their two empires. London's lack of interest in the proposal, however, forced Paris to turn to the Continent in an effort to embed France's measured economic liberalisation and modernisation in a larger process of European economic integration.Footnote ²⁰ Here, as elsewhere, the French found themselves compelled to innovate.

Bossuat's book contains all the hallmarks of his earlier studies: a wealth of statistical information, prodigious research in (primarily French) archives, and a focus on the links between economics and diplomacy and between the domestic and international spheres. Also familiar from his earlier work is the overall thesis that the Americans influenced, but did not dictate, post-war French policy. If the thesis itself is unlikely to provoke much objection,Footnote ²¹ Bossuat does leave open the question of how best to describe the role of the United States in post-war French policy. He rightly rejects such terms as ‘enslavement’ or ‘vassalisation’, but this is not particularly helpful, since there is presumably a vast middle ground between complete independence and dependence. This question is all the more pertinent because Bossuat, in discussing US military aid, writes that France was effectively ‘under [US] trusteeship’ (en tutelle, p. 338).Footnote ²² As he details, during the 1950s the Fourth Republic's financial state came to depend on injections of US money at precisely the same time that Washington sought to instrumentalise its aid for military purposes. This situation predictably generated tensions between Paris and Washington, particularly when it came time to work out national budgets. Unable to fill their budgetary holes with their own resources, French governments pressed the Americans to increase their aid while the Americans sought to exploit their advantage by urging the French to make a greater military contribution to European defence – a contribution that would only exacerbate France's financial problems. But if these battles highlight the tensions at the heart of Franco-American relations, they also have important implications for how scholars approach the Fourth Republic. Given France's strained finances during much of the post-war period, it is impossible to write about French politics or policy without according a prominent place to the United States. One might debate Washington's precise impact on French politics at any given moment, but the more important point perhaps is that the question of US influence – a question of interest to both contemporaries and subsequent scholars – was woven into the Fourth Republic's political fabric.Footnote ²³

In his conclusion, Bossuat remarks that French ‘spiritual and cultural life’ was transformed by US aid (p. 372), but unfortunately does not develop this intriguing point. All the more welcome, then, is Brian McKenzie's study of US public diplomacy towards France during the Marshall Plan years. While several scholars have examined US efforts to recast French and European political and economic practices, McKenzie focuses on the cultural sphere.Footnote ²⁴ More precisely, he recounts the attempts of American officials to project a positive image of the United States in France through such initiatives as travelling exhibitions, the promotion of tourism and propaganda directed at trade union leaders and workers. In so doing, McKenzie sets out to refute scholars such as Rob Kroes and Richard Pells who, he insists, downplay the ‘transformative effect’ of US culture on post-war Europe.Footnote ²⁵ Indeed, McKenzie claims that, through its public diplomacy, the United States imposed itself on France to such an extent as to justify terms such as ‘American hegemony’ and phrases such as the ‘abdication of French sovereignty’ (pp. 11, 224). During the late 1940s, he writes, ‘the Fourth Republic delegated, surrendered, or quite simply lacked the authority to control political debate or the articulation of political choices within its own borders’ (p. 224). But perhaps even more important than the direct threat to national sovereignty was the impact of US activities on the way in which the French understood and defined themselves. According to McKenzie, US public diplomacy ‘created an image of the American way of life as a utopia of gratified individuals leading lives of mass consumption, and then promised it to European populations. In France and beyond, US public diplomacy created a mentalité, or discourse, of what it means to be modern’ (p. 13).

For McKenzie, the Americans exercised a political–cultural hegemony in post-war France that reached deep into the country's collective psyche. While certainly bold, the claims made are not entirely convincing. One problem is that the argument is at times contradictory. Having defined US hegemony at one point as the United States getting ‘what it wanted in most cases’, McKenzie cites several examples where US efforts proved counterproductive (p. 238). Thus propaganda stressing the benefits of Marshall Plan aid clashed with the harsh economic realities of many French workers and farmers, undercutting the image of a generous United States and reinforcing communist criticisms of US aid. Similarly, he notes that many trade union leaders and rank-and-file members reacted strongly against depictions of American life as a middle-class consumer utopia, viewing them as evidence of materialism and superficiality.Footnote ²⁶ In the end, McKenzie falls back on the argument that US public diplomacy fostered anti-Americanism, most notably by raising expectations of improved living standards that no amount of Marshall Plan money could meet. This argument, however, not only calls into question McKenzie's own definition of hegemony, but it also neglects the lengthy history of French anti-Americanism, which, as Philippe Roger shows, drew its strength not so much from what the United States did (or did not do) but more from what it was.Footnote ²⁷ Another and related problem is that the book is not really about the effects of American efforts. While McKenzie skilfully tells the story of US public diplomacy (the various initiatives, the bureaucratic battles, the shifting means and aims, etc.), his affirmations about its purported impact on the French are extremely tenuous. Few sources are provided and those that are are often American. Admittedly, McKenzie set himself a difficult task in trying to assess the attitudes of the French towards the Marshall Plan. That said, investigating the nature and extent of US influence on French culture, broadly conceived, requires at the very least a more thorough exploitation of available French sources than McKenzie attempts. Otherwise one ends up saying far more about the United States than about France.

In the end, the question of whether US political–cultural influence in post-war France can be described as hegemonic is perhaps too difficult to be answered adequately in a single monograph. Much, in any event, depends on how one defines hegemony. And here it is helpful to turn to political scientists, who have used the term ‘hegemony’ to describe the pre-eminent role of the United States in the making and maintenance of the post-war international political and economic order.Footnote ²⁸ For countries such as France, US pre-eminence (or hegemony) provided a real but also circumscribed scope for manoeuvre. In the context of the emerging cold war, France had little choice but to integrate itself into the Western alliance; joining the Soviet bloc was never an option, aside perhaps for the PCF. As for the much-discussed ‘third way’ between East and West, France either alone or as part of a united Western Europe lacked the resources (if nothing else) to make this a reality. Given Washington's leadership role, however, membership in the Western alliance meant that France operated within an international order whose broad contours were determined largely by the United States. This international order possessed a domestic face, one aspect of which was the mass-consumption, individualist society that, McKenzie suggests, became associated with modernity. But it was also an order that impinged on French foreign policy in a more direct fashion, including pressure to pursue more economic liberalisation at home and abroad, to put an end to empire as a closed bloc, and to adopt a binary East–West conception of international politics. There is little doubt that most French leaders readily accepted this order, partly because much of it corresponded to their own understanding of French interests and partly because they soon learned how to extract significant benefits from it for France.Footnote ²⁹ Yet, just as importantly, it was not the post-war order that the French themselves chose but rather one to which they had to adapt.

The United States aside, probably no country preoccupied French policymakers more than Britain. As Claire Sanderson's study of Anglo-French defence policies makes clear, moreover, relations between the two countries could be extremely contentious. Sanderson begins by asking why two countries that shared ‘common values and interests’ found it so difficult to agree on the ‘aims and conditions’ of a ‘common European security policy’ (p. 15). The answer, she argues, lay primarily with the British, who resisted steady pressure from Paris for a firm commitment to common defence that went beyond the Brussels and NATO treaties. Anglo-French differences came to a head with the Pleven Plan/EDC, for it soon became clear that any chance of French parliamentary approval of the project depended on British participation. Accordingly, the French waged a determined campaign to convince London to revise its traditional aversion to permanent peacetime commitments – a campaign which enjoyed Washington's support. In some ways the campaign was successful. Although Sanderson criticises the British government for refusing to embrace the EDC, her study clearly shows just how far the British evolved from their initially cool response to Pleven's proposal.Footnote ³⁰ Indeed, as early as 1952, the UK foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, informed the French that Britain was willing to do everything short of formally joining the EDC, a position which encompassed a British military presence in Europe and joint training of British and European soldiers. In addition to these promises, the April 1954 British–EDC accord included provisions for British membership in the EDC's projected Council of Ministers, as well as the integration of a British armoured division (and air units) into the European army. Ironically, it was the EDC's demise at French hands that allowed London to escape from this far-reaching military partnership. In the end, the Paris accords committed Britain to little more than what Eden had proposed two years earlier.

From a French perspective, however, efforts to persuade the British to transform their defence policy were less than a success. Not only did Paris have to settle for less in 1954 than had been offered in 1952, but, just as officials feared, British guarantees proved to be anything but iron-clad: citing financial reasons, the Macmillan government in 1958 ignored French protests and unilaterally reduced British troop strength on the Continent. One might respond that, objectively speaking, the French had good reason to be satisfied with the Paris accords; but surely the more important point is that Britain's promised support fell short of what French policymakers wanted and what French domestic politics required. Just as pertinently, the British welcomed the Paris accords as something of a victory over the French, which is hardly surprising.Footnote ³¹ After all, if one sets aside Sanderson's assumption that Britain and France's strategic interests were complementary (an assumption that her account of British policy itself does much to undermine), then the British emerge as fairly sharp tacticians, achieving the purported benefits of the EDC (a strengthened collective defence) without its unwanted aspects (supranationalism and military integration).Footnote ³² But it is not simply a question of London persevering over Paris. As Sanderson's detailed account of British deliberations makes clear, one important reason why France failed to get what it wanted is that the overall course of British policy depended to an important extent on domestic political factors over which the French had little influence. Thus British reservations towards the EDC were rooted in the conviction, shared by Conservatives and Labourites alike, that Britain was simply not a European power like the others and therefore could not fully participate in European institutions. British attitudes towards Europe would evolve over time, but during the EDC years no amount of French prodding or pleading was going to remove this basic obstacle.

Overall, Sanderson's study is better on the British side than on the French. This partly reflects her extensive use of official British records, but it is also a result of her perspective: in framing Anglo-French defence relations as an extended effort by Paris to convince London to commit itself more fully to the Continent, French policy emerges as more coherent and purposeful than it arguably was. Divisions over the EDC among French leaders and officials, for example, fade from sight. Another result of this framework is a focus on conventional forces at the expense of nuclear weapons. Yet at the same time that French governments pressed Britain for more troops and airplanes, they were also developing nuclear energy, which, from the start, was intended for both civil and military purposes. In Sanderson's study, nuclear weapons figure merely at the end; repeated disappointment with Britain's conventional military commitment, she argues, strengthened the belief in Paris that France needed nuclear weapons. But for the French it was not simply a question of whether or not to develop these weapons but also of whether to do so alone or with others. As Georges-Henri Soutou recounts, successive governments appeared genuinely interested in building a European ‘strategic and nuclear community’ which would include Germany.Footnote ³³ No doubt one motive was to share with others the heavy financial and technological burden of developing nuclear power. But it is worth asking if a European nuclear community did not also represent an alternative to a nuclear partnership with the British (and the Americans) – a partnership that Paris had sought in vain.Footnote ³⁴ In other words, was the project another example of the Fourth Republic's ability to conceive of innovative proposals when forced to do so by the recalcitrance of France's allies?

Although Raphaële Ulrich-Pier's study of René Massigli does not focus exclusively on Anglo-French relations, she does nevertheless have a good deal to say on the subject. His strong anti-Munich position in 1938 earned Massigli, a professional diplomat whose career began under the Third Republic, the enmity of Vichy authorities, and in 1943 he joined De Gaulle's Free French movement, eventually becoming commissioner for foreign affairs. Partly due to policy disagreements with De Gaulle, Massigli was appointed ambassador to Britain in September 1944, a post he held until 1955. His long tenure lent a valuable element of continuity to Anglo-French relations, contributing in the process to heightening Massigli's influence in both Paris and London. As ambassador, Massigli was an untiring advocate of an Anglo-French bloc as a moderating force in the emerging cold war (pp. 950, 953). Although by no means a ‘neutralist’, he did hope that France and Britain together could loosen cold war divisions by tempering dangerous anti-Soviet proclivities in Washington and by prodding the Americans to seize opportunities to negotiate. Prominent among the factors influencing Massigli was the desire to avoid over-reliance on the United States.Footnote ³⁵ It is all the more interesting, therefore, that Massigli proved to be such a staunch anti-federalist, since a united Europe could potentially multiply France's influence with the two superpowers. And yet, as Ulrich-Pier makes clear, Massigli vigorously opposed proposals for European unity, most notably in the case of the EDC, which he described as an ‘unwanted monster’ (p. 1144). In addition to anti-German prejudices and a desire not to provoke Moscow, Massigli objected to the EDC's supranationalism, both because it would alienate the British and because he believed that Europe should be constructed along confederal and not federal lines. Not surprisingly, Massigli, who in 1955 became the Quai's secretary-general, was extremely sceptical of the ‘relance européenne’ that would lead to the Rome treaties.

At over 1,500 pages Ulrich-Pier's biography provides more information on Massigli than is perhaps necessary, but it does nevertheless make several important points. One point concerns the persistence of anti-German sentiments within the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The argument that anxiety about a German resurgence was little more than a negotiating tactic to win concessions from France's allies downplays the real fears of many Fourth Republic officials, whose careers had begun during the inter-war period and who therefore had followed closely the demise of Weimar, the rise of Nazism and the road to war. That the Germans after 1945 were in no position to threaten their neighbours was obvious; but less certain was what Germany might be capable of in ten or fifteen years. At the same time Massigli realised that France could not prevent the creation of a West German state integrated into the Western alliance. Rather than futile opposition he believed it wiser for France to seek political, economic and military safeguards against Germany – safeguards that the French could not provide by themselves but only by working with others, including the Germans. Another and related point that emerges from Ulrich-Pier's study is that several leading figures in the post-war Quai shared Massigli's anti-Gemanism and anti-federalism, including Jean Chauvel, Alexandre Parodi and Henri Hoppenot.Footnote ³⁶ Consensus, in other words, was notably absent not only within parliament but also at the very heart of the French foreign policy establishment. Equally significant, which policy enjoyed primacy at any given moment partly depended on the shifting configuration of alliances between political leaders and officials. Thus, as Ulrich-Pier shows, Massigli's influence on France's European policy peaked in 1954–5, largely because Pierre Mendès-France appears to have found his advice congenial – something that says much about Mendès-France's own views.Footnote ³⁷ When, however, the more pro-European Edgar Faure replaced Mendès-France in early 1955, Massigli's influence quickly lessened and soon afterwards he was forced to retire.

Rainer Hudemann and Hélène Miard-Delacroix's edited volume shifts the readers’ attention once again, this time to Germany. Hudemann in particular is well known to specialists for his efforts to rehabilitate France's post-war German policy by shifting the emphasis from repression and exploitation to innovation and co-operation.Footnote ³⁸ If the individual chapters are of mixed quality, the volume as a whole is useful for students of post-war French foreign policy. In bringing together many of the scholars who have contributed to Hudemann's project of reconceptualising Franco-German relations, it highlights the multi-faceted nature of French activities, which by no means were limited to political-security issues. More ambitiously perhaps, the editors, referring to the economic and cultural spheres in particular, suggest in their introduction that developments in France and Germany converged after 1945, and wonder whether this process is best described as ‘Americanisation’, ‘Westernisation’ or, as Thomas Lindenberger in his contribution, ‘Kalter Krieg im deutschen und französischen Film in der 1950er Jahre’, proposes, ‘Europeanisation’ (p. 359). Although convergence is a vast subject that easily overruns the boundaries of Franco-German relations, it does raise the question of the relationship between short-term and long-term factors in French foreign policy. Arguably, the focus of much of the recent scholarship on policymaking and decision-making comes at the expense of the larger context or of what Pierre Renouvin famously called the forces profondes – the demographic, social, economic, cultural and other forces beyond the immediate control of individuals. However one characterises these forces (modernisation, Americanisation, etc.), more arguably needs to be done to place French foreign policy in a larger context. For only then is it possible to understand not only why French decision-makers chose a particular policy, but also the range of choices available to them.

The book's opening chapters, on Franco-German political relations, all focus on the aims of policymakers, even if the contributors offer differing assessments. Thus while Georges-Henri Soutou sees the 1954 Paris accords as the beginning of a sustained effort at bilateral co-operation that continued under De Gaulle, Geneviève Maelstaf argues that the French always viewed their ties to Germany as one part of a larger Four-Power relationship (France, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union), whose maintenance was essential not only to preserve France's status as a victor power but also to prevent the development of overly close bilateral US–German relations. Espousing an even more hard-headed approach to the study of Franco-German relations than Maelstaf, Ulrich Lappenküper insists that co-operation was rooted not in any change in perspective in either Paris or in Bonn but rather in the pursuit by both sides of their traditional national interests.Footnote ³⁹ Competing assessments are also evident in the chapters devoted to the economic sphere. Whereas Bernard Poloni contrasts the Federal Republic's financial and monetary rigour with the inflationist and deficit-running practices of Fourth Republic governments, Christoph Bucheim asserts that terms such as ‘planification’ and ‘Soziale Marktwirtschaft’ conceal significant similarities between the post-war French and German economies, both of which were market-oriented and increasingly integrated into the world economy. In emphasising convergence, Bucheim broaches the issue of long-term influences on French policies, suggesting that French and German economic development after 1945 should be viewed as a ‘giant catching-up process’ with the United States in terms of growth (p. 162). Less clear, however, is the extent to which short-term economic policies – and growing Franco-German economic ties in particular – helped or hindered this convergence.Footnote ⁴⁰

But the chapters that most directly address the relationship between short-term and long-term factors are those on cultural relations. In her short contribution, Emmanuelle Picard examines the October 1954 Franco-German cultural accord, which she presents as a continuation of French policy since 1945 aimed at encouraging the teaching of French language and culture in Germany. Similarly, Corine Defrance discusses official French efforts to develop ‘cultural centres’ in German cities (p. 244), but adds that during the 1950s governments in Paris were unwilling to devote the resources that the Germans did for similar purposes in France. The result, in the French case, is that non-governmental actors (or ‘civil society’) stepped into the breach – actors who included journalists, agriculturalists, artists, trade unionists and teachers. In striving to build permanent links with their German counterparts through meetings and exchange visits, these actors promoted a broader definition of cultural activities than that used by Quai officials, while also laying the groundwork for the ‘relaunching’ of intergovernmental collaboration in the cultural field after 1963. Defrance concludes that cultural contacts kept alive the possibility of rapprochement between France and West Germany during the 1950s, when political relations between the two were at a low ebb. Her case, however, is somewhat weakened by Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink's chapter on enduring French and German stereotypes and clichés regarding each other. Popular with intellectuals of various kinds, these constructions of the other were often mirror images (sometimes positive, often negative) of the qualities that one identified with one's own country and people; they tended therefore to underscore differences. Likewise, Christophe Charle casts doubt on the effectiveness of French cultural policies in showing that during the 1950s French culture was less present in West Germany than vice versa when measured, for example, by the number of books translated from one language to the other. Interestingly, he adds that books translated from English dominated both the French and West German markets (pp. 276–7). Despite the best efforts of French (and West German) governments, cultural relations after 1945 appear to have responded poorly to direction. Equally to the point, if there was convergence in the cultural sphere it was similar to that which Bucheim suggests occurred in the economic sphere – that is to say, not so much between France and West Germany as between the two countries and the United States.

III

The final book under review is François Lafon's biography of Guy Mollet. Secretary-general of the French socialist party (SFIO) from 1946 to 1968, Mollet was at the very centre of post-war French politics. Indeed, Lafon argues that he was the most influential Fourth Republic politician, a status that reflected Mollet's tightening grip on his own party as well as the SFIO's critical position in the political spectrum (p. 387). Given France's multiple political parties, together with the anti-system behaviour of two of its principal elements (Gaullists and communists), the SFIO's direct or indirect support was needed to form a viable coalition government. But if Mollet was an important political figure, he also remains a controversial one who, in the eyes of many observers at the time and afterwards, embodied all that was wrong with post-war French socialism: its attachment to empty doctrinal slogans, its repeated political compromises and its intolerance of dissent. But it is not only the SFIO's steady decline in electoral strength and membership that is attributed to Mollet's nefarious influence or to what his critics called ‘national molletisme’. As the quintessential post-war politician, Mollet and all that he represented also appeared to be directly implicated in the Fourth Republic's demise. For only in a deeply flawed regime could someone like him climb to prominence and power.

Much like Denis Lefebvre in his earlier biography,Footnote ⁴¹ Lafon offers a sympathetic but by no means hagiographic portrait of Mollet. Where Lafon differs from Lefebvre is in his more extensive use of French sources, which allows him to place Mollet's activities in the context of post-war SFIO politics and, in particular, of the increasingly bitter divisions that engulfed the party. The scission of 1920 had left an enduring legacy for the SFIO, and afterwards the preservation of party unity became a guiding tenet of socialist leaders. Although Mollet was no exception, his efforts to unify French socialists ultimately proved ineffective. One reason concerned the perennial problem of exercising power: Fourth Republic governments periodically included SFIO members and, as always, the presence of socialist ministers exacerbated differences within the party over how best to advance socialism. Predictably, conflict on this score came to a head during 1956–7, when Mollet himself headed the government. Mollet's difficulties, however, also stemmed from the contradictory approaches he adopted to preserve unity. One approach was to insist on party discipline and, if necessary, to impose sanctions against deputies who voted contrary to official SFIO positions. Similarly, he exploited the growing centralisation of authority around the position of secretary-general to deny critics a party platform to express their views, effectively forcing them to voice their criticisms in public and thus to expose themselves to sanctions. The second approach, by contrast, was to seek compromise positions on contentious issues. Thus in the case of the EDC Mollet, while favouring the project, consistently qualified the SFIO's support by attaching conditions designed partly to win over party dissidents. During the Algerian war he attempted to steer a middle course between socialists who supported the maintenance (albeit in some reformed fashion) of l'Algérie française and the small but growing number of partisans of Algerian independence. Mollet's proposal, reflected in the resolution passed at the SFIO's 1956 Lille Congress, was to combat the extremism of both the settlers and the socialist, pro-independence Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) while forging a status for Algeria somewhere between colonial dependency and national independence. This balancing act, however, proved untenable, and during his government French policy focused increasingly on repressing the FLN by military means.Footnote ⁴² Lafon argues that Mollet was a prisoner of the SFIO's traditional colonial policy which conceived of the empire's future in terms not of the eventual independence of its members but of partnership and even assimilation.Footnote ⁴³ But if Mollet appeared unable to conceive of an Algeria independent of France, it is also true that, as the SFIO's secretary-general, his role was to square circles.

Perhaps even more than the EDC or Algeria, European integration illustrates the influence of domestic political factors on French foreign policy. As Lafon recounts, during 1956–7 Mollet played a decisive role in pushing France into the Common Market. That he would do so was not self-evident. Among the bureaucratic elite, attitudes towards French membership ranged from unenthusiastic to hostile, with officials of the powerful Finance Ministry notably unfavourable.Footnote ⁴⁴ Mollet himself, while a long-time supporter of European unity, was not prepared to pay any price. During the late 1940s, as a leading member of France's delegation to the European Council in Strasbourg, he had sought a formula for continental unity that would satisfy Britain. For Mollet, British participation was important not only as a counterweight to Germany, but also as a guarantee that a united Europe would have a social democratic orientation – a consideration particularly in evidence during the period of the Labour government in Britain from 1945 to 1951. The last thing he wanted was a Europe of six organised around the liberal project of a common market. The obvious question, then, is why did he push for precisely this Europe during 1956–7? Dashed hopes concerning the British no doubt contributed to his change of heart. So too did the lack of alternatives: by the 1950s it was clear that Europe would be constructed along liberal lines or not at all. But Lafon is also right to stress the role of domestic politics. Given the festering disputes within the SFIO over Algeria, shifting attention to Europe promised to assuage differences, for the principle of European unity enjoyed the support of most socialists. Also important, French membership in the Common Market might sharpen the divide between those parties which rejected European unity (Gaullists and communists) and the remaining ones which, while by no means unconditional supporters of Europe, did not oppose the project on principle. In helping to consolidate an anti-Gaullist and anti-communist bloc, Mollet would strengthen both his own government and the Fourth Republic at a time of deepening crisis.

As Lafon's study indicates, there is much to be gained from placing the Fourth Republic's foreign policies in the context of domestic politics. In addition to highlighting the critical role played by prominent individuals, Mollet's career also suggests that intra- and inter-party politics helped to shape foreign policy choices. Here, scholars are well served by the spate of biographies of leading political figures that has appeared in recent years. Indeed, having long viewed political biography with a certain contempt, French academe now appears to have embraced the genre.Footnote ⁴⁵ Yet at the same time biography has its limits; however thorough, it almost invariably privileges the individual over the larger political system of which he or she was a part. What is needed for the Fourth Republic are more studies that examine foreign policy through the lens of parliamentary politics – through the lens of the shifting coalitions and alliances within and between parties.Footnote ⁴⁶ This is not to argue for the Primat der Innenpolitik to the exclusion of other perspectives. But the very nature of the Fourth Republic's political regime – characterised as it was by a powerful legislature, a weak executive and a multiplicity of parties in a highly competitive political environment – means that domestic politics cannot be ignored or treated simply as a nuisance factor for decision-makers. Integrating domestic politics better into the history of the Fourth Republic's foreign policies promises to provide a better understanding of the options available to French governments, the choices they made and the constraints under which they operated.

IV

The books reviewed in this essay provide an opportunity to consider the emerging orthodoxy on the Fourth Republic's foreign policies that stresses the coherence and effectiveness of the latter. If the first two studies expressly endorse this orthodoxy, the remaining ones provide a wealth of information that, taken together, casts doubt on the view of French foreign policy as an undisputed success. In reading these studies, one is struck by the frequent disagreements over policy – disagreements between officials, disagreements within governments and disagreements between and within political parties. French policy, it is clear, was often less than coherent. As for its effectiveness, here too claims need to be qualified. While the Americans clearly could not dictate policy, the argument that the French successfully imposed their choices on the United States appears exaggerated. Similarly, despite a concerted campaign to convince the British to co-operate on defence issues, the French failed to get what they wanted, and even the Anglophile Massigli was often disappointed with his British hosts. In the case of West Germany, it is unclear to what extent the rapprochement that began during the 1950s was due to decisions taken in Paris (and Bonn) or to developments largely beyond French direction.

In the end, the emerging orthodoxy is not so much wrong as it is one-sided. In attributing to France a unity of purpose and independence that it did not possess, it overstates the Fourth Republic's influence in the international realm. Similarly, in knocking down what amounts to a straw man (the argument that France was completely dependent on others, most obviously the United States), the emerging orthodoxy risks overlooking not only the various constraints under which the French operated, but also an important dynamic at work in post-war foreign policy: the ability of the French to innovate when compelled to do so by outside pressure, principally from their allies. This latter point is distinct from the argument that smaller powers sometimes exerted disproportionate influence on larger powers. A central element of the emerging orthodoxy on post-war French foreign policy (as well as a mainstay of cold war historiography), this argument draws a fairly straight line from initial aims to policy outcomes – the French, in short, largely got what they wanted. Yet often enough the French failed to achieve their initial aims, whether in regard to Germany's future, to Atlantic security arrangements or to the empire. To some extent, this failure reflected policy disagreements among French leaders, politicians and officials; but it was also the result of resistance from France's allies and partners. Equally to the point, when confronted with resistance French governments often displayed a remarkable ability to adapt and even to change course, proposing policies that defined national interests not so much in unilateral terms as in – and through – co-operation with others. Although the mechanics of this process require further study, one possibility is that outside pressure helped to overcome paralysing internal divisions by empowering those individuals and groups open to new approaches. Put differently, when it came to foreign policy the Fourth Republic was most innovative and, perhaps as well, most successful when the French could not get what they initially wanted.