Student Number/ID: 100241775

Question 12: To what extent was France an

independent power after 1945?
Before France entered the Second World War in 1939, it was widely considered to be one of

the “great powers” of the World, thanks in part to both its massive colonial empire and its

leading role in the First World War. During the Second World War, however, France was

humiliated after it was defeated and occupied by the Germans in 1940, with the occupation

only ending with its liberation at the hands of the Allies in 1944. By 1945, France had lost

much of its international prestige and was suffering from the economic devastation caused

by World War Two. In this essay I will argue that although France was unable to become a

truly independent world power after 1945, it was able to regain a substantial level of

autonomy as an independent nation. For the purpose of this essay, an “independent

power” will be defined as a nation which has control over its own foreign policy, economy

and domestic affairs without intervention from other nation states. This essay will focus on

France during the Cold War, and in particular on the position of France as a global colonial

power, its influence in Europe, its military policy and involvement with NATO, and how

successful it was in shaping its own economic policies.

Prior to 1945, much of the influence France was able to wield in global politics came

from its sizeable colonial empire. However, after 1945 France was forced to abandon its

status as a colonial power, which weakened its ability to act independently in international

affairs. One of the main reasons for this was that the two superpowers during the Cold War

– the United States and Soviet Union – were both anti-imperialist. The Soviet Union, being a

communist regime, was inherently opposed to the existence to colonial empires and often

actively supported communist independence movements in the French Empire. The most
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prominent example of this is the First Indochina War (December 1946 – August 1954),

where the Soviet Union and Communist China provided the Viet Minh with weapons,

vehicles, food, supplies and military advisors to help them defeat the French. The United

States, meanwhile, was willing to help France retain its colonies, but only where it would

prevent the spread of communism. In Vietnam, the US had initially been reluctant to

support France in re-imposing colonial rule, but eventually decided to assist France in

response to the increasing amount of aid the Viet Minh were receiving from China and the

USSR.1 Even with $3 billion worth of American aid – amounting to three quarters of the

entire French war effort in Indochina – France was unable to win the war in Vietnam.2 After

the disastrous French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, which had occurred despite

extensive US air support, France withdrew from the region. The loss of Vietnam

demonstrated that France was unable to maintain its international position without

extensive aid from the United States.

France was unable to act independently in foreign affairs, and this is made even

more evident in cases where French colonial interests did not coincide with America’s own

foreign policy, which was primarily focused on containing communism. Algeria had been a

French colony since 1830, but in 1848 it was reorganised as an official part of France and

administered as such. This, combined with the fact that by the late 1950s there were 1.2

million European colonists living in Algeria (out of a total population of eight million), made

it a highly important French territory.3 After the end of the Second World War, France

refused to grant Algeria independence, and as a result in November 1954 there was an

1
Odd A. Westad, The Cold War: A World History (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2018), 151.
2
Fredrik Logevall, “The Indochina Wars and the Cold War, 1945–1975” in The Cambridge History of the Cold
War, eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2:288.
3
Westad, The Cold War: A World History, 276.
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uprising led by the anti-colonial – but not communist – National Liberation Front (FLN).

During the war, the FLN used the UN as a platform to put pressure on the United States to

either end its alliance with France or force France to leave Algeria, pressure which was

exacerbated by the numerous war crimes committed by the French forces in the conflict.4

The war also created numerous problems in France itself, culminating in the “May Crisis” of

May 1958 which overthrew the Fourth Republic and restored Charles de Gaulle to power.

Despite promising to keep Algeria under French control when he was reinstated,

international pressure and the deteriorating war situation forced de Gaulle to withdraw

from Algeria in 1962.

However, the most prominent example of France’s declining independence in

foreign policy is the Suez Crisis. On 26 July 1956, President Nasser of Egypt nationalised the

Suez Canal and the Suez Canal Company which controlled it. This posed a threat to the

economic and strategic interests of both France and Britain, who had owned the vast

majority of the Company’s shares and relied on the Canal for quick access to their colonies

in the Far East. France was already opposed to Nasser due to his support for the FLN in

Algeria, and so after the nationalisation of the Canal they conspired with the UK and Israel,

which was fearful of Nasser’s growing influence in the Arab world, to overthrow Nasser and

retake the Canal. On 29 October, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula (which was under

Egyptian control) and on 5 November the British and French, claiming to be trying to end

the conflict, invaded Egypt and captured the Suez Canal. Unfortunately for both France and

Britain, the plan backfired completely, because the Egyptians were able to block the Canal

before its capture and, more importantly, the invasion greatly angered the United States.

4
Odd A. Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of our Times (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007), 136.
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The USA was worried that the invasion would alienate many neutral countries – particularly

Arab countries – and nationalist movements in the Third World, and as a result President

Eisenhower threatened to withdraw US financial support from both countries if they did not

withdraw.5 The affair severely damaged Franco-American relations, led to a rise in anti-

American sentiment in France, and contributed to the May Crisis which brought down the

Fourth Republic and reinstated de Gaulle. This, in turn, led to the adoption of ‘Gaullism’ – a

policy which is defined as “the absolute need for independence in decision-making, a refusal

to accept subordination to the United States,…the primacy of the nation-state, and the

importance of national defence”.6

Although France lost much of its autonomy in global politics after 1945 due to the

emergence of the Cold War, it did gain a significant level of power and influence in

European affairs through its membership of organisations such as the European Economic

Community (EEC). One of the main aims of France after 1945 was to ensure that another

war with Germany could never happen again. Towards and immediately after the end of

the Second World War, France advocated the complete dismemberment of Germany into a

series of smaller states which would either be independent or (in the case of the Ruhr

valley) internationalised.7 This faced opposition from the United States, Soviet Union and

Great Britain, who had agreed to divide Germany into zones of occupation instead, and

France was forced to accept their decision. However, as relations with the Soviet Union

deteriorated in 1947, France shifted its policy to one of reconciliation with Germany and the

integration of (western) Europe into an alliance that France had significant authority over.

5
Westad, The Global Cold War, 273.
6
Tony Chafer and Brian Jenkins, France: From the Cold War to the New World Order (Basingstoke, Hampshire:
Macmillan Press, 1996), 17
7
Hans-Peter Schwarz, “The Division of Germany, 1945–1949” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds.
Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1:144.
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This meant that when the USA and UK united their occupied zones into a “Bizone” on 1

January 1947, the French followed suit in August 1948, creating the “Trizone” that, in 1949,

became the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). In addition, the French were able to extract

economic and political concessions from the British and Americans when they agreed to

these measures, including representation in the Allied High Commission that was

responsible for the development of the FRG until 1955.8 A further step in European

integration was the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950, which resulted in the

establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 which in turn led

to the foundation of the EEC. The EEC in particular proved to be central to the re-

establishment of French autonomy in Europe. In 1965/66 when de Gaulle boycotted the

EEC for seven months in 1965/66, it became evident that the EEC depended on France’

cooperation to properly function, whereas in organisations such as NATO France had

become much more marginalised due to US influence.9 Moreover, France’s authority within

the EEC allowed it to limit British influence in Europe by excluding it from the organisation

on two occasions – once in 1963 and again in 1967. This meant that by the time Britain did

join in 1973, France’s authority and power within the EEC was already firmly established.

Thus, by sacrificing some of its economic and political autonomy to promote European

integration, France was able to retain a considerable level of independence in foreign policy

and reaffirm its position in Europe.

The extent to which France was able to retain independence in its military policy was

largely dependent upon its foreign policy. Whilst France had possessed one of the most

8
Ibid, 1:144
9
N. Piers Ludlow, “European Integration and the Cold War” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds.
Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2:186.
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powerful armies in Europe at the start of World War Two, the French military had been

severely crippled by the German invasion of 1940, the subsequent German occupation and

the division between Vichy France and Free France. These developments resulted not only

in a huge loss of equipment and resources, which left France reliant upon US aid during and

after the Second World War, but it also greatly damaged the military reputation of France in

the eyes of its allies and enemies alike. The inability of the French Army to defeat either the

Viet Minh in Indochina or the FLN in Algeria only reinforced the scepticism France’s allies

now had for its military capabilities. Moreover, despite being a founding member of NATO

and a signatory of the treaties that led to its creation, such as the Dunkirk Treaty (May 1947)

and the Treaty of Brussels (March 1948), membership of the organisation was arguably

more restricting for France than it was beneficial. On the one hand, by being a member of

NATO France could solidify its ties with its European allies, further its policy of German

reconciliation and count on support from the United States – especially when threatened by

communist powers such as the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the alliance was (and very

much still is) dominated by the USA, which often forced France to align its military and

foreign policy with the policies of the United States. In addition, because of America’s vast

nuclear arsenal and its hegemony within NATO, France was compelled to follow the NATO

strategy of relying on the United States for a nuclear deterrent against a potential Soviet

attack. This was despite the fact that Britain was allowed to start its own nuclear program

and, following 1958, even received US aid for its program.10 To the French, dependence on

the USA for a nuclear deterrent had two glaring flaws: first, as of 1956 the forces of the

Warsaw Pact outnumbered NATO’s by roughly 6:1, a ratio which it was feared would not be

10
David Holloway, “Nuclear Weapons and the escalation of the Cold War, 1945–1962” in The Cambridge
History of the Cold War, eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010), 1:389
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mitigated by the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the event of a full-scale war.11 Second,

whilst the United States had around eleven times as many nuclear weapons as the USSR did

by November 1957, many in Europe doubted that the USA would actually use them to

defend Europe if it meant a Soviet nuclear retaliation against the US itself.12 In France, this

last doubt was all but proven by their humiliation during the Suez Crisis, which they believed

was the result of a US-Soviet conspiracy to undermine France.13 Ultimately, the lack of

influence within the Western alliance, combined with the fear that a lack of its own nuclear

weapons would bar them from having any influence in Western defence strategy,

contributed to the rise in anti-American sentiment and the adoption of Gaullist policies

regarding foreign policy and defence. A key component of France’s drive for independence

in military policy was the decision to construct a French atomic bomb in 1954, and in

February 1960 France tested its first nuclear bomb in the Sahara Desert.

Bibliography
 Bozo, Frédéric. “France, “Gaullism,” and the Cold War” in Crisis and Détente, ed.
Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 158-178. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge History of
the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

 Chafer, Tony and Brian Jenkins (eds.). France: From the Cold War to the New World
Order. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press, 1996
 Fink, Carole K. Cold War: An International History. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2014

11
Carole Fink, Cold War: An International History (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2014), 106
12
Ibid, 105-106
13
Frédéric Bozo, “France, “Gaullism,” and the Cold War” in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds.
Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd A. Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2:164
Student Number/ID: 100241775

 Ludlow, N. Piers. “European Integration and the Cold War.” in Crisis and Détente, ed.
Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 179-197. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge History of
the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010

 Schwarz, Hans-Peter. “The Division of Germany, 1945–1949” in Origins, ed. Melvyn P.

Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 133-153. Vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of the Cold
War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

 Logevall, Fredrik. “The Indochina Wars and the Cold War, 1945–1975” in Crisis and
Détente, ed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad, 281-304. Vol. 2 of The
Cambridge History of the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.