France and the Alliance

Archive Report

Exclusion of Britain from Common Market

President De Gaulle of France has managed in the past few weeks to shake the Western alliance, alienate allies in Europe and America, and provoke the wrath of the Soviet Union. The French veto of Great Britain's application for membership in the European Economic Community (Common Market)1 was the immediate but not the sole cause of the present disarray in relations of the Western powers. De Gaulle's insistence on building an independent French nuclear deterrent has long been a source of friction between Washington and Paris. And signing of the Franco-German treaty of cooperation not only brought misgivings in European capitals but also aroused Russia's deep-seated fear of a vengeful and nuclear-armed Germany.

The present policy of France strikes at ...

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