The Great Schism: France, Britain and the Euro-Atlantic Issues,1957- 1963
Drawing on the French and British diplomatic archives, this thesis examines a crucial question which, until now, has been insufficiently analysed: the role that Anglo-French relations played, especially their politico-strategic dimension, during a period which proved crucial for building the architecture of Euro-Atlantic security, in a world dominated by the Cold War.
The Great Schism: France, Britain and the Euro-Atlantic Issues,1957- 1963
by Frédéric Gloriant
Abstract
From January 1957 onwards, following the Suez crisis, Macmillan prioritised the rebuilding of the Anglo-American “Special Relationship”; in June 1958, de Gaulle returned to power, with the ambition to deliver a foreign policy grounded in the principle of French national independence from the United States. De Gaulle’s desire to promote a strategic European autonomy came into conflict with a British foreign policy designed to maximise British influence within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance. The fundamental clash between these two directions of travel, latent at first, resulted in a politico-strategic schism between Paris and London, which de Gaulle chose to expose publicly on January 14, 1963, by vetoing the British entry into the European Economic Community and turning down the Anglo-American offer of a nuclear partnership.
Drawing on the French and British diplomatic archives, this thesis will examine a crucial question which, until now, has been insufficiently analysed: the role that Anglo-French relations played, especially their politico-strategic dimension, during a period which proved crucial for building the architecture of Euro-Atlantic security, in a world dominated by the Cold War. By bringing together European and transatlantic perspectives, this study demonstrates the links between the politico-strategic dimension of the European project and the development of NATO, and thus improves our understanding of fundamental long-term trends in British and French foreign policies, namely how, from that point on, Britain and France came to represent two antagonistic positions within the debate between Atlanticists and supporters of “European Europe.”
