ABSTRACT
The sphere of foreign policy, per se, is one where national political leaderships can enjoy limited autonomy in an interdependent world. The constraints faced by French presidents are similar to those encountered by chief executives in other comparable liberal democracies: these include inherited alliance structures, a powerful foreign policy community, a strong bureaucratic input, the existence of influential lobbies, and the unpredictable nature of political circumstances. The Gaullist legacy Attempts to assess French foreign policy from the vantage-point of Gaullism are fraught with difficulty. No-one can predict what de Gaulle’s reactions to events would have been had he governed during the 1980s and 1990s. Gaullist foreign policy was itself multifaceted, contradictory and changeable according to the political conjuncture. Foreign policy under Francois Mitterrand seemed permeated by contradictions and ambiguities. This was to some extent inevitable, given the diverse goals pursued by foreign policy-makers, and the fact that situations themselves were contradictory.
