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Diverging French and Portuguese approaches to imperialism complicated French diplomats' assessment of Portugal in the 1960s. As France relinquished the last of its African empire, Portugal fought to maintain its overseas provinces. Examining this relationship reveals the uneven evolution of French attitudes towards Africa. Within the French state, some opposed Portugal's bloody colonial wars, while others believed that Portugal, as the remaining European power in Africa, represented the last best hope for the civilising mission on the continent. Beyond the Cold War dynamics at play, ideologies of race and empire lay at the heart of this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 50 years after 1960's 'Year of Africa', most of Francophone Africa continues to be embedded in a set of associations that fit very well with Kwame Nkrumah's description of neocolonialism, where postcolonial states are de jure independent but in reality constrained through their economic systems so that policy is directed from outside. This article scrutinises the functioning of the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA), considering the role the currency has in persistent underdevelopment in most of Francophone Africa. In doing so, the article identifies the CFA as the most blatant example of functioning neocolonialism in Africa today and a critical device that promotes dependency in large parts of the continent. Mainstream analyses of the technical aspects of the CFA have generally focused on the exchange rate and other related matters. However, while important, the real importance of the CFA franc should not be seen as purely economic, but also political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France’s hesitant stance on EU enlargement towards the Balkans is illustrative of a broader ambivalence among both French elites and citizens towards the European project. Despite principled support for the Balkans’ EU membership, achieving this step is no strategic priority for France. The official approach emphasizes strict conditionality and a rigorous monitoring of reform progress in aspirant countries. A hostile public opinion and superficial media coverage further strengthen the country’s reluctance to admit new, possibly unprepared candidates into the Union. Analysing the historical evolution of the French position on EU enlargement as well as its current political, institutional and societal expressions, this article construes France’s disinvestment from the Balkans’ EU perspective as the result of failed expectations and a growing disillusionment with the EU’s international role and its political future more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conflict over French nuclear testing in the South Pacific has dominated discussion of Australia’s relations with France while Gough Whitlam was Prime Minister (December 1972 to November 1975). Nonetheless, other issues were also important. To an extent not previously appreciated, Whitlam took a very positive view of France, despite his opposition to French nuclear testing. He understood the implications for Australian interests of France’s leading role in Western Europe, notably with respect to trade access, and was attracted by French scientific and industrial expertise. He was open to possible French involvement in uranium enrichment in Australia, and to Australian participation in the French/European Airbus aviation project. The French government reciprocated Whitlam’s interest in closer engagement. His efforts to establish stronger relations with France (and Europe), though unsuccessful, provide a further example of his commitment to greater independence for Australia from its traditional allies and partners, the United States and Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the key tenets of French foreign and security policy during the Cold War, and illustrates the deep challenges to the French consensus raised by the emergence of a unipolar system. There is a growing gap between the rhetoric of French security policy, emphasizing ‘autonomy’ and ‘sovereignty’ out of habit from the Cold War, and the actual security practices showing a gradual embedding within the transatlantic security structures. In the absence of a new transpartisan grand narrative relevant for the contemporary international system, such embedding is easily portrayed in France as a ‘treason’ from a romanticized Gaullist foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even though France is an active player on the world stage, its foreign and security think tank milieu is smaller than that of similar powers, most notably the United Kingdom. Comparing French think tanks with those in Denmark illustrates how French institutional structures constrain think tank activities. France’s political tradition of centralisation, its non-academic civil service education, and separation of academia and administration create an environment in which think tanks are underfunded and walk a fine line between an over-controlling administration and a suspicious academia. Some French think tanks perform well in spite of these structures, which indicates that they could flourish and compete at the highest international level if given better structural conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The French doctrine towards peace operations has, over the last two decades, reflected the ambivalence of France’s position, stretched between on the one hand a military culture that places the use of force at the centre of strategy and on the other hand multidimensional operations that by their nature integrate a large range of activities. As a consequence France has evolved as a ‘reluctant peacekeeper’: while it has been significantly involved in peace operations since the end of the Cold War, the military has never felt comfortable with the peacekeeping concept, seen as a dilution of their primary function of fighting wars. This tension has shaped both doctrinal development and operations. Twenty years after the French engagement in former Yugoslavia, lessons have been learnt, and policy-makers have become aware of the evolution of conflict management and the subsequent necessity to integrate the military dimension into a broader framework. Yet France’s policy is still shaped by a certain aversion towards the concept of long-term multinational peace operations, and a parallel preference for more focused and reactive operations. The merits of the use of force are central to these debates. While these policy preferences are responses to legitimate concerns about both the efficiency of foreign interventions and the soldier’s identity, they also raise questions as to their compatibility with the long term and multidimensional requirements of bringing sustainable peace in fragile states. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Durant la Première Guerre Mondiale, la presse parisienne de l'arrière évoque abondamment le génocide des Arméniens, tant pour dénoncer les massacres que pour alimenter un discours propagandiste visant à la mobilisation de guerre de la société civile. Les journaux voient en l'Allemagne l'instigatrice du génocide, plaçant la souffrance arménienne dans la continuité des exactions commises à l'encontre des Belges. Certains journaux parisiens se servent également du génocide des Arméniens pour opposer musulmans et chrétiens dans un discours aux accents de guerre de religion tandis que la presse de droite fait occasionnellement preuve de xénophobie à l'encontre des réfugiés et des victimes. La situation s'inverse même à la fin du conflit; le génocide des Arméniens étant dénoncé comme « bourrage de crâne » dans le but de promouvoir le rapprochement Franco-Turc. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution explores notions of sovereignty in the three French territories of the South Pacific: French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna. It also analyses the key nuances and challenges of the transition from aspirations of ‘independence’ to those of ‘shared sovereignty’. From protectorates or colonies to overseas territories (Territoires d'Outre-Mer), these three territories have experienced specific and customised statuses with various degrees of autonomy, all underscoring a fine line between autonomy and sovereignty. Indeed, ‘sovereignty’ has today become much more synonymous with the concept of ‘self-government’ or ‘large autonomy’, as the current situation in French Polynesia demonstrates. Meanwhile, New Caledonia is one step closer to ‘full sovereignty’, since its actual status includes provisions for a referendum on self-determination between 2014 and 2018. The claim for independence, a characteristic of Kanak and Maohi movements, has become more pragmatically focused, to the extent that considering sovereignty ‘in free-association’ with France is now a perfectly conceivable option. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the role of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Turkey—the Diyanet—in the French Council for Muslim Religion (Conseil Francais du Culte Musulman or CFCM). The Diyanet-linked Cordination Committee of Muslim Turks in France (Comite de Coordination des Musulmans Turcs de France, or CCMTF) was one of the constitutive federations of the CFCM, confirming its status as 'the' interlocutor for the French state in its relations with the Turkish Muslim community. I argue in this paper that this is mainly for two reasons. First, the Turkish government uses the Diyanet as a foreign-policy instrument, promoting 'Turkish Islam' as a moderate and rational religion, compatible with modernity and as a model for 'European' or 'French Islam'. The Diyanet presents itself as the legitimate representative of Muslims of Turkish origin in France, excluding other organisations as radicals. Secondly, the Turkish Muslim community in France still displays loyalty to Turkey in terms of social organisation. The paternalistic attitude of the Turkish state, the immigrants' search for protection of the country of origin, nationality divisions within the CFCM and the long-standing habit of the French state to deal with its Muslim community through foreign governments help to explain the continuing importance of the Diyanet for the Turkish Muslim community and in the CFCM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses French cultural diplomacy in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians, a country created after the First World War as a result of the Franco-Serbian military alliance during the war. Cultural diplomacy is examined as part of broader French political and economical action in Eastern Europe to organise the small newly created countries into the French field of interest and oppose Germany. French cultural diplomacy in the Kingdom of SCS had two aspects: the symbolical and the concrete. Its aim was to spread positive feelings towards France in the ex-Austria-Hungarian regions of the Kingdom, where France was unknown or seen as an enemy, and to maintain the pro-French attitude of the majority of Serbs. The aim was to contribute to the 'internal equalisation and strengthening' of the new ethnically and religiously heterogeneous country, by using culture as a 'soft power'. French cultural diplomacy in the Kingdom of SCS is analysed in its local, regional and European context and in a short- and long-term perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After 9/11, the Iraq war and the French and Dutch rebuttal of the Constitutional Treaty in 2005, some have observed that EU member states have tended to de-Europeanize or renationalize foreign policies. In such a context, does France see its foreign policy future within the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) or outside it? Despite the inherent contradictions of the traditional French model of European foreign policy (intergovernmentalism, Europe puissance, EU as a power multiplier), France's commitment to a strong European foreign policy remains powerful. But the French allegiance to CFSP is less based on a political project for Europe and for its role in the world than motivated by necessity, as France is less and less able to act alone in the world. Thus, French policy vis-à-vis the EU in general and CFSP-European security and defence policy (ESDP) in particular has become increasingly pragmatic and flexible. This trend will most likely continue under President Sarkozy's leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The French experience of the First World War has aroused significant interest within and outside academic circles since the 1990s. A heated controversy over the role and significance of the 1914-1918 'war culture' has, in the last ten years, pitted two schools of interpretation, emphasizing 'consent' on the one hand and 'coercion' on the other. This paper first presents the main lines of the argument between two groups of historians anxious to contribute to a European history of the First World War. It then suggests avenues of further investigation that urgently require an international and collaborative effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

France is frequently identified as the country whose official development assistance (ODA) aid program is most oriented toward the promotion of its foreign policy goals. We examine whether France reoriented the allocation of its aid in Africa to reflect changing priorities in the 1990s. Using panel data, we compare the patterns in French aid allocation to African recipients during the period 1980-1989 with that during the period 1990-2000. We find that nearly all the same political, economic, diplomatic, and cultural variables that explain French ODA allocation during the Cold War apply in the second period as well, though to a slightly lesser degree. The predictive strength of the prior years' ODA commitments did increase in magnitude, suggesting that bureaucratic inertia increasingly exerts a formidable force in such decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The implementation of European policy in France is far from having brought about a definitive decline of the state. Admittedly, over the last ten years, French local authorities have taken a very dynamic role in the management of European funds. Likewise, the state, which is not the principal user of European funds, cannot avoid the sharing of power, which is required by the Community principles of partnership and subsidiarity. This does not mean, however, that the state has stepped aside completely. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that it has reorganised itself. After the strong mobilisation of the local authorities at the time of the reform of the structural funds (1989-1993), since 1994 we have noted a major redeployment of the state, which has adopted the role of intermediary between Europe and the local level. The state has rebuilt its margin for manoeuvre through its administration in the regions, whose role has been reinforced throughout the 1990s, following ten years of decentralisation. In short, the example of the implementation of European policy bears testimony to the major changes taking place in the French political system: the state of the 1990s may no longer be the interventionist, centralised state which characterised the 'French exception' for two centuries, but it is far from having withered away completely in favour of regional or local government. On the contrary, little by little, it is imposing itself in the role of a state which coordinates and arbitrates and whose future lies, paradoxically, in its ability to impose itself as a central figure on the local and regional scenes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]