Search

The article discusses the international incident that ensued following the decision by U.S. consul to Morocco James DeLong arrested two Confederate sailors who had disembarked a French ship in Tangier, Morocco, in February 1862, particularly focusing upon French condemnation of DeLong's act, the impact of the arrests on Moroccan-U.S. relations, and the significance of the U.S. Civil War in the Middle East and North Africa.

The article presents information on the reaction of the United States to the French invasion of Mexico in 1864. Contextual details are given outlining how Napoleon III of France sought to take advantage of the U.S. Civil War by invading and establishing a monarchial rule in Mexico to strengthen French assets in the region. The responding negative reactions by the U.S. are outlined, noting the diplomatic work of Secretary of State William H. Seward to reverse the initiative and the preparatory military activities of General Ulysses S. Grant in Texas near its border.

During the Second World War, Raymond Aron began publishing political commentary in journals and newspapers aimed at a general non-expert readership. This wartime undertaking would become a life-long commitment to expanding political debate beyond the professional spheres of academia and policy making. This study recovers and analyses a concise article that Aron published in August 1945 in the French illustrated journal Point de vue. This forgotten journalistic source reflects idea of the role and responsibility of the public intellectual in a changing world and powerfully conveys three important aspects of Aron's international thought. First, Aron implicitly advances the idea that the general public has a key function in shaping democratic foreign policy. Moreover, I argue that Aron's short political analysis provides valuable insight on two theoretical notions that merit the attention of international relations scholars: the concept of 'friendship' in international relations and the idea of popular 'spatial awareness' as condition for a democratic state's position in international order. This study suggests that in Aron's vision of post-war order, articulated immediately after the end of the Second World War, the invocation of the idea of 'Amica America' sought to redefine the relations between France and the United States, but also the very political future of the Hexagon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1958 and 1960, all of France's colonies in West Africa became independent. While recent historical studies have shed light on the sociopolitical developments that led to the collapse of the French empire in this part of Africa, very few of them have explored the American or other third-party dimensions of this process. In so doing, they have confined the story of decolonisation to an exclusive Franco-African affair. Using a transnational historical approach, this article argues that a number of US public spheres, including various newspapers contributed to the decolonisation saga in French West Africa. This was carried out through their performative coverage of the colonial situation. Although the French imperial state attempted to hold back the tide of anti-colonial sentiment in the USA through judicious public relations campaigns that targeted American public opinion and policy-makers, its efforts proved largely illusory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the relationship between geopolitical change and the evolution of French grand strategy from Iraq to Libya. While the European Union (EU) and the bilateral relationship with Germany continue to feature high in French grand strategy, France has in the space of just a few years substantially strengthened its Atlantic connection (with the US, Britain and NATO) and upgraded its relationship with other European powers – particularly Russia. It is argued that the driving reason behind this diversifying trend is the weakening of the US-led West, both globally and in Europe. If US military power laid the foundations of order in and around Europe, America's shift of geostrategic attention eastwards is underpinning a political destructuring of Europe and its broader neighbourhood. For one thing, Europe is moving towards a more multipolar balance, as evidenced by Russia's resurgence in the east and southeast, Turkey's drifting from the EU and growing influence in the continent's southeast and, crucially, Germany's increasing influence over the direction of the EU. For another, France's so-called axis of strategic priority (Northern Africa, the Sahel, Levant, Horn of Africa/Red Sea and the Gulf) is characterised by mounting instability and increasing penetration by external powers. Against this backdrop, the special relationship with Germany and the EU are insufficient to guarantee French influence in Europe, the stability of Europe's broader neighbourhood or France's aspirations to global power. In an increasingly uncertain global and regional environment, France is seeking to reconcile a deeper politico-military relationship with Britain (and the United States), a special relationship with Germany in the politico-economic sphere and strong ties with Russia, thereby positioning itself as a sort of spider in an increasingly multipolar European geopolitical web. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Why was the French Communist Party (PCF) evicted in May 1947, only two years after it was asked to join the Socialists (SFIO) and the Christian Democrats (MRP) in a tripartite government? According to Pierre Grosser, the chief cause of the eviction was the pressure exerted by the United States on MRP and SFIO leaders, who distanced themselves from their Communist counterparts. While rejecting the thesis of an American-led conspiracy, Irwin Wall also underlines the role of MRP and SFIO politicians, whom he believed nourished strong anti-Communist feelings. The assumption is therefore that of a passive role for the PCF, the aspirations of which were limited to the seizure of power through democratic means. In contrast, this article argues that the Communists had a strategic interest in their own expulsion. Given what they perceived as a French alignment with the Western bloc at the Moscow Conference in April 1947, they began to weigh the advantages of a temporary eviction from government. They concluded that this would allow them to regain the support of the discontented working class and force the MRP and the SFIO to finally concede some of their demands. The hope was to stage their retour en force to the government at a later point. Their abstention in a vote on military appropriations for Indochina on 19 March 1947 brought them close to expulsion. However, it was not until their defiance of government wage policy that Paul Ramadier finally evicted them on 5 May 1947. In retrospect, contrary to the PCF’s original plan, its ‘temporary’ return to the opposition was to last more than 30 years. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Both the Ford and the Carter administrations regarded the rise of the Union of the Left in the 1970s with suspicion, albeit to a different extent. Ideology and events exacerbated the Ford administration's perception of danger and hostility towards an electoral alliance that was about to bring the Communists into the government of a NATO country. Comparatively, the Carter administration seemed less worried. Although it had no sympathy for the Communist Party, the Carter team viewed the rise of a French social democracy favourably. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles de Gaulle regarded NATO as a hated symbol of US hegemony. From 1958 to 1966, France incrementally reduced its military and political participation in the Western alliance. This article analyses how ‘NATO Paris’ – the NATO secretary-general, the 15 national ambassadors forming the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in Paris and NATO insiders in allied governments – coped with the Gaullist challenge and tried to find solutions to the French ‘malaise’ and to de Gaulle's obstructionism. By ‘working around the General’, these NATO players strengthened the cohesion of the ‘NATO 14’ (minus France) and prepared the ground for a multilateral revitalisation of the Western security alliance once de Gaulle finally withdrew France from all military commands and councils in March 1966. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

What role, in the French view, was the United States to play in the defence of Europe? From the very outset, the feeling was that the NATO allies could not be totally dependent on the United States for their security. Even during the Fourth Republic, the French were interested in building a European counterweight to American power within the Western alliance, and during the Gaullist period the whole idea of an independent Europe seemed to play an even more prominent role in French policy. But an independent Europe would have to include a strong, and therefore nuclearised, West German state, something the French throughout the Cold War era could scarcely bring themselves to accept. That meant that there was no alternative to a continuing American military presence in Europe, and thus to a degree of political dependence upon the United States – a conclusion the French, with great difficulty, came to at the end of the Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between France and the US is complex and characterised by frictions, which derive from the interests (and not the susceptibilities), of the two partners (Iraq, NATO, Afghanistan, the Middle-East). In order to avoid a return to past suspicions, the two allies need to establish a more structured dialogue, and cope with the new international agenda through more permanent structures. This requires a new culture of cooperation on both sides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, as an introduction to the Symposium, discusses the determinants and evolution of attention to defence and foreign policy issues in France. It thereby contributes to existing debates on the relative power of presidents in this area. It then provides a short overview of the different contributions to the symposium. It argues that there is some measure of agreement in the analyses of current relations between France and the US, especially concerning the weight of history. Yet, at the same time, the articles provide a variety of views and approaches to the current state of these relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining France's post-war transformation from an imperial into a nuclear and cultural power, this article explores how the triangular relationships between France, Algeria and the USA cause the traditional self-image of the nation as hexagon to break. Two arguments are made: first, that the French cultural and nuclear projects are not only intertwined but also conflictual, promoting both conciliation and friction in international relations; and second, that the metaphorical use of nuclear terminology in post-war French theory echoes this dissonance by using technological imagery to criticise a technocratic Gaullism. French cultural and nuclear policy work alternately in conjunction and at cross-purposes, while theoretical interventions critical of the Gaullist state adopt a discourse that mimics that of the nuclear establishment. The article concludes with a discussion of a single building situated at ground zero of these debates. In its iconographic conflation of heart, grotto, bunker and broken hexagon, the church of Sainte-Bernadette-du-Banlay by Claude Parent and Paul Virilio renders the double paradox of: first, a national self-image that is simultaneously held together and split apart by alternately converging and diverging policies; and second, a critique that assumes the form of its object. En traçant la transformation de la France impériale en pouvoir nucléaire et culturel pendant l'après-guerre, cet article interroge les rapports triangulaires entre la France, l'Algérie et les États-Unis et la pression destructrice qu'ils exercent sur le symbole traditionnel de la nation française, l'hexagone. L'article avance un double argument: en premier lieu, les projets culturels et nucléaires entrepris par la France dans l'après-guerre ont tendance à se contredire, de façon à produire dans les rapports franco-américains un rapprochement culturel accompagné d'un éloignement diplomatique; en deuxième lieu, l'emploi métaphorique de la terminologie de la recherche nucléaire dans la sociologie et la philosophie fait écho à cette dissonance en se servant d'un langage technologique pour avancer une critique du gaullisme technocratique. En conclusion, l'article commente un exemple architectural qui se trouve au cœur de ces débats. Conçue par Claude Parent et Paul Virilio, l'église de Sainte-Bernadette-du-Banlay se caractérise par une iconographie complexe (cœur sacré, grotte, bunker, hexagone fracturé) qui met en scène un double paradoxe: d'un côté, celui d'un symbole national unifié et déchiré à la fois par des initiatives politiques et culturelles qui tantôt se renforcent tantôt se contredisent; et de l'autre, celui d'une critique qui emprunte la forme de ce qu'elle rejette. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article profiles the role of Alexander Hamilton during the Franco-American crisis from 1796 to 1801. It mainly focuses on various comments given by scholars with regards to Hamilton, who was the United States statesman and leader of the Federalists Party; and, as the first Secretary of the Treasury established a federal bank. Arguments over Hamilton's motivations during the Franco-American crisis reveals that he was manipulating the conflict to establish a European-style standing army to beat domestic opposition, while loyally supporting the passage and enforcement of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

The article discusses the relationship between the U.S. and France. The relationship between the two countries was affected by the crisis in Iraq. Newspaper in the U.S. have reported that the opposing visions of both countries regarding security management are not compatible and may break their relationship. Three topics discussed by the author include the status of the Franco-American relations in consideration of transatlantic relationships and the war in Iraq being the source of conflict between the two countries.

The article focuses on the history of the relationship between the U.S. and France. The contribution of the U.S. to the liberation of France was the most recent chapter in a friendship that has spanned to two centuries. Based on solidarity that has never failed, from the battlefields of Yorktown to the beaches of Normandy and through all the crises that happened, the friendship between the two countries is especially strong because it is rooted in shared values.