Abstract
Whatever their political sympathies, the French will for a long time see Françis Mitterrand as a man who wanted to represent them in all their contradictions and contrasts, however attractive or unattractive. In people’s political minds, this two-term president will remain a symbol and direct exponent of two particularly French demands: an inconceivable shift of political power within the country and the need to resist external forces and steer a steady course that carried the voice of France into the world. In keeping his own voice, was Mitterrand, as a prominent symbol of the shift from one world to another, the heir of a dying century or the visionary of a nascent one? The debates around the final phase of his foreign and defence policy have not yet ended.
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Notes
1. For a summary of Mitterrand’s own views on the key issues in his first term as president, see F. Mitterrand, Réflexions sur la politique extérieure de la France (Paris: Fayard, 1995).
2. H. Védrine, Les Mondes de François Mitterrand (Paris: Fayard, 1996).
5. On the fear of war, see Védrine (op. cit.). On the German question, see F. Mitterrand, De l’Allemagne, de la France (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1996).
6. For the official documents of the period, see D. David (ed.), La Politique de défense de la France: textes et documents (Paris: FEDN, 1989).
7. On the early days of Mitterrand’s term as president, see P. Favier and M. Martin-Roland, La Décennie Mitterrand, in three volumes (Paris: Seuil, 1990, 1991, 1996).
10. For a radically different view, see B. Lecomte, ‘François Mitterrand et l’Europe de l’Est: le grand malentendu’ in Commentaire, No. 75, Autumn 1996.
11. On the CSCE and subsequently the OSCE, see Arrangements régionaux et sécurité collective in Annuaire Arès, Vol. XV, No. 2 (Grenoble: SDEDSI, 1996).
15. B. Khader (ed.), L’Europe et la Méditerrannée, Géopolitique de la Proximité (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994).
16. On general overseas development issues, see Sociétés africaines et développement, Travaux et recherches de l’IFRI’ (Paris: Masson, 1992).
17. On the general diagnosis before the reforms carried out by Chirac, see F. Heisbourg, Les Volontaires de l’An 2000 — pour une nouvelle Politique de Défense (Paris: Balland, 1995).
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© 1998 M. Maclean
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David, D. (1998). Independence and Interdependence: Foreign Policy over Mitterrand’s Two Presidential Terms. In: Maclean, M. (eds) The Mitterrand Years. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26395-0_7
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