ABSTRACT
There have been fewer issues in French foreign policy than in internal politics on which there has been acute party conflict, though when such issues do arise they can be no less divisive. On questions of what ought to be France’s rôle in the world, and of her main foreign-policy objectives, there has been and still is a high degree of continuity and consensus. The most obvious achievements of the Fourth Republic in the field of foreign policy were therefore the negative ones of increasing France’s disagreements with her allies, and of actually weakening her influence within the Atlantic Alliance. It has been suggested by opponents of Gaullism that its main contribution as far as foreign policy was concerned was, under the presidency of General de Gaulle, the successful propagation of a number of temporarily useful myths.
