France and the Construction of Europe, 1944-2007

In the second half of the twentieth century France played the greatest role - even greater than Germany's - in shaping what eventually became the European Union. By the early twenty-first century, however, in a hugely transformed Europe, this era had patently come to an end. This comprehensive history shows how France coupled the pursuit of power and the furtherance of European integration over a sixty-year period, from the close of the Second World War to the hesitation caused by the French electorate's referendum rejection of the European Union's constitutional treaty in 2005.

Autorentext

Michael Sutton is Professor Emeritus, Modern History and International Relations, at Aston University. He has written regularly on France for The Economist Intelligence Unit - part of The Economist newspaper group - since 1985, and worked in Brussels from 1973 to 1993 monitoring European Community developments. He is also a specialist in twentieth-century French political thought and philosophy.

Inhalt

Preface
Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction: De Gaulle's Shadow

PART I: THE POST-WAR ASSERTION OF LEADERSHIP IN CONTINENTAL WESTERN EUROPE

Chapter 1. Before the Schuman Plan

• Earlier Calls for European Union
• The Quest for Security and the Onset of the Cold War
• Western European Economic and Political Cooperation

• Wariness about the New West Germany
  Chapter 2. Pooling Coal and Steel

• The Monnet Initiative
• The Schuman Declaration
• Forging the ECSC Treaty

• Ratification and Implementation
  Chapter 3. German Rearmament and Military Security

• The Pleven Plan
• The Rejection of the EDC Treaty
• The Paris Accords

• The Suez Crisis and its Aftermath
  Chapter 4. The Gaullist Vision of the Atlantic Alliance and European Union

• Adenauer, the US, and the Berlin Crisis
• The Failure of the Fouchet Committee
• A Rose and a Rose Garden

• 'Tous Azimuts' and the Limits of Détente
  PART II: THE COMMON MARKET AND THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY

  Chapter 5. The Benelux Initiative and the Formation of the Common Market

• Messina to Venice
• Negotiating the EEC and Euratom
• De Gaulle's 'Practising the Common Market'

• Securing Agricultural Interests
  Chapter 6. Moving from Dirigisme to Qualified Economic Liberalism

• The Watering Down of Post-war Dirigisme
• Delors and the Single Market
• The Reorientation of Foreign Trade

• Globalisation and French Hesitations
  PART III: PRESERVING POWER AND SECURITY AFTER DE GAULLE

  Chapter 7. European Political Integration up to the Cold War's Close

• The Rapprochement with Albion
• Echoes of the Fouchet Proposals
• America's 'Year of Europe' and the Atlantic Alliance

• Back to the Elysée Treaty
  Chapter 8. Opposition to German Monetary Hegemony

• The Death of the Bretton Woods System
• The Deutsche Mark as Anchor Currency
• The EMS and its Ambivalent Design

• The Dictates of the ERM and French Dissatisfaction
  Chapter 9. Geopolitical Upheaval and the Maastricht Treaty

• Monetary Union Proposed from Paris and Bonn
• France and the Fall of the Berlin Wall
• The Drive for German Unification

• Providing a Treaty for European Union
  Chapter 10. Post-Yalta and Post-Maastricht Europe

• Implementing EMU and 'La Pensée Unique'
• The Yugoslav Imbroglio
• Rethinking Security and Defence
• The European Union and the Other Europe
  Epilogue
  Bibliography
  Index