ABSTRACT
In France for much of the post-war period the relationship between foreign and defence policies has been a particularly close one. For leaders of the Fourth Republic until 1958 and more particularly, the Fifth Republic since 1958, defence policy has been seen as one of, if not the, most important instrument to achieve the objectives of French foreign policy. The Second World War provided contradictory lessons as far as French policy-makers in the post-war period were concerned. French liberation by the allies emphasized the efficacy of defence alliances and the need for France to co-operate closely in the military fields with other states if renewed threats to her security materialized. A problem closely related to the debate between defence integration or national control and one equally affected by the central dilemma facing policy-makers has been that of the relative balance between conventional and nuclear forces in French defence policy thinking.
