Abstract
There probably are as many French détente policies as French presidents. De Gaulle believed in his own “Common European House” that would extend from the Atlantic to the Urals; Giscard expected marvels from the “miracle of trade”; Mitterrand, after demonstrating France’s firm Atlanticist resolve in the security area, has attempted the difficult task of reconciling morality with politics. His concept of détente is global: economic negotiations cannot be “decoupled” from human rights issues and future talks on conventional arms reductions.
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Notes
Cf. Stanley Hoffmann’s contribution to Institut Charles de Gaulle, Les conditions de l’independance nationale dans le monde moderne ( Paris: Cujas, 1977 ) p. 159.
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Democratie française ( Paris: Fayard, 1976 ) p. 165.
Raymond Barre, L’Expansion Sept. 1978, p. 163.
For further details, cf. Denis Lacorne, “La politique de promotion des exportations ou le colbertisme dans les moyens en vue du libéralisme comme fin,” in La politique extérieure de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Samy Cohen and Marie-Claude Smouts, eds ( Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985 ) pp. 151–72.
Giscard d’Estaing, “Preface” to Samuel Pisar, Transactions entre l’Est et l’Quest ( Paris: Dunod, 1972 ) p. 13.
“U.S. and Alliance Export Control Policies,” in National Security and Technology Transfer, Gary K. Bertsch and John McIntyre, eds (Boulder, Co: Westview Press, 1983) p. 154. See also Bertsch, “The Military Implications,” in ibid., p. 87; and Claude Lachaux, Le Commerce Est-Ouest ( Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1984 ) p. 78.
Angela E. Stent, Technology Transfer to the Soviet Union, Arbeitspapiere zur Internationalen Politik, No 24, Forschungsinstitut der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik, April 1983, p. 73.
Stephen Woolcock, Western Policies on East-West Trade (London: Chatham House Papers No 15, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982) p. 56.
Gabriel Robin, La diplomatie de Mitterrand (Les Loges en Josas, éditions de la Bièvre, 1985) pp. 27–31.
François Mitterrand, Politique 2, 1981, pp. 17–18, as cited in ibid., p. 27.
Pierre Hassner, “The View From Paris,” in Eroding Empire, Lincoln Gordon, ed. ( Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1987 ) pp. 200–1.
Ibid., p. 207. See also, Hassner, “Le totalitarisme vu de l’Quest,” inTotalitarismes, Guy Hermet, Pierre Hassner and Jacques Rupnik, eds (Paris: Economica, 1984 ) pp. 18–19
and Diano Pinto’s and Jacques Rupnik’s contributions to L’ Amérique dans les Têtes, D. Lacorne, J, Rupnik, and M. F. Toinet, eds ( Paris: Hachette, 1986 ).
Interview with a high civil servant, Paris, June 1989. See also Thierry Wolton, Le KGB en France (Paris: Grasset, 1986) pp. 241–58, and Christian Lamoureux’s contribution to this volume, Chapter 7.
Robin, La diplomatie de Mitterrand p. 33. Evan Galbraith, the US Ambassador to France once declared to a group of visiting Americans, “(Mitterrand’s) economic policy is absurd; I still don’t understand why he felt obliged to appoint Communist ministers; but, by God, he’s our best ally.” Cited in André Fontaine, “Diplomatie française, l’épreuve de la cohabitation,” Politique Internationale no. 35 (printemps 1987) p. 55.
François Gorand, “La France et les relations Est-Ouest de 1981 à 1986 et après,” Commentaire no. 34 (été 1986) pp. 251–2; Robin, pp. 37–40.
Cf. Pierre Hassner, “France and the Soviet Union,” in Western Approaches to the Soviet Union, M. Mandelbaum, ed. (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988) p. 40;
Samuel F. Wells, “Mitterrand’s International Policies,” Washington Quarterly 2 (Summer 1988): 64.
Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982 ) p. 238.
Michel Jobert, Par trente six chemins ( Paris: Albin Michel, 1984 ) pp. 159–60.
Our evidence based on an interview with a high civil servant (Paris, March 1989) differs from that of Samy Cohen who claims that Gérard Renon, one of Mitterrand’s advisers, had specifically approved the signing of the gas deal on the night of January 22. It remains, however, that Mitterrand’s anger was somewhat hypocritical, for he never objected to the holding of high-level negotiations. Cf. Cohen, La Monarchie Nucléaire ( Paris: Hachette, 1986 ) pp. 229–32.
The volume of gas imported from Siberia is expected to be 8.0 bcm per year for 25 years, increasing the French dependence on Soviet gas from 11.7% of the total French gas supply in 1980 to a projected 30% in 1990. The original contract price was 4.75 dollars per thousand cubic feet. The estimated value of gas treatment equipment to be delivered by a consortium led by Creusot-Loire was 662 million dollars. It had been estimated that without the Soviet contract as many as 50% of the personnel working for Creusot-Loire would have to be laid off. Cf. Bruce W. Jentleson, Pipeline Politics (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986 ) pp. 185–200.
Alexander M. Haig Jr., Caveat ( New York: Macmillan, 1984 ) p. 304.
Cf. Joan Pearce, Subsidized Export Credit (London: Chatham House Paper, No. 7, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1980 ) pp. 1–63.
Denis Lacorne, “Quand l’Europe résiste aux Etats-Unis,” Projet, April 1983, p. 330. In 1980, according to the Commission du Bilan, export credit subsidies paid for by the French government amounted to 6.2 billion francs. Cf. Commission du Bilan, La France en mai 1981, les activités productives ( Paris: Documentation française, 1981 ) p. 249.
Jentleson, Pipeline Politics, p. 182. “In early February the French banking consortium that had already agreed to provide 850 million dollars in low-interest credits announced that it also would finance the 140 million dollars originally scheduled to be made as a down payment. This step put the Mitterrand government… in a position of demonstrating a firmer commitment to the natural gas trade than even the West Germans. The Deutsche Bank consortium had rejected a similar Soviet request for 100% financing and was reported to be furious that the French bankers had broken a gentleman’s agreement to keep concessionary terms at least within some limits.” Ibid., p. 192. See also Axel Lebahn, “Yamal Gas Pipeline from the USSR to Western Europe in the East-West Conflict,” Aussenpolitik 3 (1983): 257–81.
Homer E. Moyer Jr and Linda Mabry, “Export Controls as Instruments of Foreign Policy,” Law and Policy in International Business 15 (1983): 68.
Maria R. Ruegg, “The Basis of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: A Time for Reassessment,” mimeo, Yale University Law School, 1984, p. 65.
Cf. Andreas F. Lowenfeld, Trade Controls for Political Ends, 2nd edn (Matthew Bender, 1983 ) pp. 281–98.
James R. Atwood, “The Export Administration Act and the Dresser Industries Case”, Law and Policy in International Business 15 (1983): 1160.
For a detailed analysis of the extraterritorial reach of the Export Administration Act, conflicts of jurisdiction, comity principle, and other principles of international law (and their limits), see Denis Lacorne, “Malentendus translantiques…,” Revue du Droit Public et de la Science Politique en France et à l’Etranger mars-avril 1987, pp. 419–41. See also Karl Meessen, “Extraterritoriality of Export Control: A German Lawyer’s Analysis of the Pipeline Case,” German Yearbook of International Law 97 (1984): 97–108, and Karl Meessen’s contribution to this volume, Chapter 4.
Cf. Michael Mastanduno’s and Christian Lamoureux’s respective contributions to this book, Chapters 9 and 7. See also Christian Lamoureux, “L’enjeu technologique,” in CEPII, La Drôle de Crise (Paris: Fayard, 1986) pp. 163–5
and more generally, Claude Lachaux, Christian Lamoureux and Denis Lacorne, De l’arme économique (Paris: Fondation pour les Etudes de Défense Nationale, 1987) chs. X, X II.
“Pechiney SA-Soviet Venture,” The Wall Street Journal Nov. 28, 1988; F. Crouigneau, “Les échanges franco-soviétiques…,” Le Monde Nov. 26, 1988.
Régis Debray, Que vive la République ( Paris: Odile Jacob, 1989 ) p. 172.
Hanns-D. Jacobsen and Denis Lacorne, “Towards a Joint European Response to Gorbachev’s Call for a Common European House,” International Herald Tribune, August 12–13, 1989. The fear of a German drift to the East, and of a potentially reunified and neutralized Germany, is best expressed, in almost caricatural form, by Alain Minc in his recent La grande illusion (Paris: Grasset, 1989). See also Alain Minc, “L’histoire revient sur ses pas,” Le Figaro, April 11, 1989. For an excellent and comprehensive survey of French anxieties vis-à-vis Germany, see Ingo Kolboom, “L’ostpolitik française,” Esprit, June 1989, pp. 121–4.
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© 1990 David A. Baldwin and Helen V. Milner
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Lacorne, D. (1990). From Détente 1 to Détente 2: A Comparison of Giscard’s and Mitterrand’s East-West Policies. In: Baldwin, D.A., Milner, H.V. (eds) East-West Trade and the Atlantic Alliance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21049-7_6
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