ABSTRACT
France is usually considered, along with Germany and Britain, to be one of the most influential countries in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) process, with a “penchant for leadership” (La Serre 1996; La Serre and Moreau-Defarges 1983; Gross 2006). Some European diplomats think that France’s approach to European institutions has been driven by a constant quest for grandeur through a European directoire. Indeed, leaders from de Gaulle to Sarkozy have openly expressed the same political dream – a France that provides its partners with a homemade Weltanschauung whose relevance would inspire a European Foreign Policy, mainly with German support and in the framework of a very select club of “big” member states – France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy (Poland is often excluded from this club by French leaders). Nicolas Sarkozy made this French vision explicit in 2009 in a speech to the annual meeting of French Ambassadors:
All the States in Europe are equal in terms of rights; they aren’t all equal in terms of duties. When a crisis erupts and a solution has to be found, France and Germany have greater duties than other countries because France and Germany are the two largest European Union countries. Each State’s responsibilities are directly proportionate to its weight. The stronger it is in Europe, the more responsibilities it has. This doesn’t require the establishment of any particular structure. It simply implies an approach, a commitment which, now more than ever, it seems to me, are the hallmarks of Franco-German understanding.
(Sarkozy 2009) The ability to play such a leadership role is premised on the assumption that France is able to articulate its political vision for the European Union’s role in the world, and that the EU endorses France’s vision and deems it sufficiently “European”. But it is doubtful that France has developed a precise and accepted outlook for “Europe”. The French difficulty in responding to German initiatives in the 2000s, or the failed referendum on the European constitutional treaty in 2005 (for the first time since 1957, a majority of the French – 55 per cent – voted “no” to Europe), have been clear examples of that trend.