The French Way (61 page)

132
. Jean-Marie Domenach, “Dieu est moderne,”
L'Expansion
, 19 October-1 November 1984, 261.

133
. Jean-Marie Domenach, “Aider plutôt que défendre”
Le Monde
, 10 October 1981, 2.

134
. Jean-Marie Domenach,
Europe, le défi culturel
(Paris: La Découverte, 1990), 128-29.

135
. Régis Debray, “Confessions d'un antiaméricain” in Fauré and Bishop, eds.,
LAmérique des Français;
the article also appeared as “Pour en finir avec l'antiaméricanisme,”
LEvénement du jeudi
, 4 July 1991, iii-ix.

Chapter 3. Reverie and Rivalry: Mitterrand and Reagan-Bush

1
. Evan Galbraith,
Ambassador in Paris: The Reagan Years
(Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway, 1987), 110.

2
. Roland Dumas,
Affaires étrangères, 1981-1988
(Paris: Éditions Fayard, 2007), 94. Addressing an American audience in Paris, Galbraith allegedly told them that France would find a way to survive the new socialist president.

3
. Renata Fritsch-Bournazel, “France: Attachment to a Nonbinding Relationship,” in
The Public and Atlantic Defense
, ed. Gregory Flynn and Hans Rattinger (Totowa NJ: Rowman and Allanheld, 1985), 97.

4
. Some 43 percent depended on television and 14 percent on the press for information about U.S.-European relations, and the rest received their information from radio, magazines, friends, etc. The less educated relied more on TV (48 percent) than newspapers (12 percent) while the better educated obtained their information from the press (24 percent) rather than television (19 percent); see Steven Smith and Douglas Wertman,
U.S.-West European Relations during the Reagan Years
(New York: St. Martin's, 1992), 193-97.

5
. Leo Crespi,
Trends in Foreign Perceptions of U.S. Power
, 26 March 1981, U.S. International Communications Agency (henceforth USICA) Office of Research, National Archives, RG 306, USIA, Reports of the Office of Research, 1964-82, box 28, 1981 reports.

6
. Fritsch-Bournazel, “France: Attachment,” 74.

7
. Ibid., 93-96. According to a SOFRES poll conducted in February 1983, only 29 percent believed a military alliance with the United States best ensured their country's safety, whereas 57 percent preferred either neutrality or membership in a Western alliance independent of the United States; see Elizabeth Hann Hastings and Philip Hastings, eds.,
Index to International Public Opinion, 1983-1984
(New York: Survey Research Consultants International/Greenwood, 1985), 200.

8
. Leo Crespi,
Trends in U.S. Standing in West European Public Opinion
, February 1982, USICA Office of Research, National Archives, RG 306, USIA, Reports of the Office of Research, 1964-82, box 29, 1982 Reports.

9
. Régis Debray, “The Third World: From Kalashnikovs to God and Computers,” interview,
New Perspectives Quarterly
3, no. 1 (1986): 25-28. See also Régis Debray,
Les Empires contre l'Europe
(Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1985).

10
. Natalie La Balme, “L'Influence de l'opinion publique dans la gestion des crises,” in
Mitterrand et la sortie de la guerre froide
, ed. Samy Cohen (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998), 409-26.

11
. François Mitterrand,
Ici et maintenant
(Paris: Éditions Fayard, 1980), 242.

12
. Socialist Party, and François Mitterrand, quoted in Philip Gordon,
A Certain Idea of France: French Security Policy and the Gaullist Legacy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993) 107. For security issues, my discussion relies on Gordon's study.

13
. Mitterrand,
Ici et maintenant
, 241-42.

14
. François Mitterrand, quoted in Gordon,
Certain Idea
, 131.

15
. Hubert Védrine,
Les Mondes de François Mitterrand: à l'Elysée 1981-85
(Paris: Éditions Fayard, 1996), 163.

16
. Frédéric Bozo and Guillaume Parmentier, “France and the United States: Waiting for Regime Change,”
Survival
49 (2007): 181-98.

17
. François Mitterrand, quoted in Védrine,
Les Mondes
, 184.

18
. Galbraith,
Ambassador
, 48, 113. Galbraith was pleasantly surprised at the socialists' policies and in time came to think “it's popular [in France] to be pro-American.”

19
. François Mitterrand, “Excerpts from an interview with François Mitterrand,” by James Reston,
New York Times
, 4 June 1981, A14.

20
. Jacques Attali,
Verbatim
, vol. 1,
Chronique des années 1981-86, première partie, 1981-83
(Paris: Éditions Fayard, 1995), 62-66. Bush's visit to Paris is fully explored in Vincent Nouzille,
Dans le Secret des présidents: CIA, Maison-Blanche, Elysée, les dossiers confidentiels
, vol. 2,
1981-2010
(Paris: Éditions Fayard, 2010), 19-42.

21
. Védrine,
Les Mondes
, 249.

22
. Attali,
Verbatim
, 1:86. Attali is not an altogether reliable source and must be consulted with caution; many American officials found him opinionated, arrogant, and anti-American. For this espionage affair, see Pierre Favier and Michel Martin-Rolland,
La Décennie Mitterrand
, vol. 1,
Les Ruptures, 198184
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1990), 94-6; Franz-Olivier Giesbert,
François Mitterrand, une vie
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1996), 354-55.

23
. Attali,
Verbatim
, 1:87.

24
. Jean Lacouture,
Mitterrand: une histoire de Français
, vol. 2,
Les Vertiges du sommet
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1988), 52.

25
. Giesbert,
François Mitterrand
, 365.

26
. Lou Cannon,
President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime
(New York: Public Affairs, 2000), 409.

27
. Robert Rudney, “Mitterrand's New Atlanticism: Evolving French Attitudes toward NATO,”
Orbis
28, no. 1 (1984): 87; and Gordon,
Certain Idea
, 121.

28
. Védrine,
Les Mondes
, 256.

29
. For a detailed analysis of French security policy, see Gordon,
Certain Idea
, chaps.
5
and
6
.

30
. Defense Minister Hernu, according to one expert, “openly admitted that any FAR operation in Europe would automatically come under SACEUR command and depend on NATO air support and logistics” even if it stood formally outside NATO orders; Rudney, “Mitterrand's New Atlanticism,” 90.

31
. François Mitterrand,
Réflexions sur la politique extérieure de la France
(Paris: Éditions Fayard, 1986), 9.

32
. Claude Cheysson, “French Defense Policy and the U.S.,”
Wall Street Journal
, 25 February 1983, 26.

33
. Defense official, quoted in Rudney, “Mitterrand's New Atlanticism,” 85.

34
. Samuel Wells, “France and NATO under Mitterrand, 1981-89,” in
La France et l'OTAN, 1949-1996, actes du colloque…1996
, ed. Maurice Vaïsse, Pierre Mélandri, and Frédéric Bozo (Brussels: Éditions Complexe, 1996), 560; Gordon,
Certain Idea
, 119.

35
. Richard Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,”
Foreign Policy
75 (1989): 3-33.

36
. Jolyon Howorth, “Renegotiating the Marriage Contract: Franco-American Relations since 1981,” in
Coming In from the Cold War
, ed. Sabrina Ramet and Christine Ingebritsen (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), 75.

37
. “La conférence de presse du Président de la République,”
Le Monde
, 11 June 1982, 9.

38
. For the Chirac and Giscard interviews, see Jim Hoagland, “Gaullist Endorses Reagan on Missiles,”
Washington Post
, 14 January 1983, A21; Michael Dobbs, “Giscard Urges Phased Deployment,”
Washington Post
, 8 April 1983, A14. One of the RPR defense experts even recommended establishing an interallied command staff in peacetime that would become operational after the beginning of hostilities, which “M. Aurillac favorable au déploiement…,”
Le Monde
, 10 August 1983, 7, observed would “purely and simply” mean the reintegration of France with NATO and a break with Gaullist orthodoxy.

39
. Michael Harrison, “Mitterrand's France in the Atlantic System: A Foreign Policy of Accommodation,”
Political Science Quarterly
99, no. 2 (1984): 225-26.

40
. On PCF dissent, see Rudney, “Mitterrand's New Atlanticism,” 95. When the PCF sided with the Soviet Union in arguing that the force de frappe should be counted as part of NATO's arsenal, Mitterrand forcefully rejected it.

41
. See, for example, Alain Besançon, “Reagan entre deux mandats,”
L'Express
, 9-15 November 1984, 30.

42
. Regarding opinion of deployment of intermediate-range missiles and U.S. leadership, see USICA,
West European Opinion on Security Issues
, October 1981, USICA Office of Research, National Archives, RG 306, USIA, Reports of the Office of Research, 1964-82, box 29, 1981 Reports; and Crespi,
Trends in U.S. Standing
, February 1982, 1982 Reports. According to one SOFRES poll, the favorable/unfavorable/no opinion responses to the deployment of intermediate-range missiles were, respectively, 33:33:34; see Daniel Vernet, “Les Français préfèrent M. Reagan au ‘reaganisme,'”
Le Monde
, 6 November 1984, 1, 6.

43
. According to a Louis Harris poll of May 1983, 44 percent opposed stationing the Pershing II even if the SS-20s remained; see Fritsch-Bournazel, “France: Attachment,” 89.

44
. Lacouture,
Mitterrand
, 2:132.

45
. Gordon,
Certain Idea
, 119.

46
. Bernard Guetta and Jean-Yves Lhomeau, “Accord franco-américain sur la reprise du dialogue avec l'Union soviétique,”
Le Monde
, 24 March 1984, 1, 3.

47
. Henri de Kergorlay and Denis Legras, “Reagan-Mitterrand: assaut de courtoisie,”
Le Figaro
, 23 March 1984, 4.

48
. Jean-Yves Lhomeau, “Quarante-huit heures consacrées aux industries de pointe et à la recherche technologique,”
Le Monde
, 27 March 1984, 4.

49
. “La visite du Président de la République aux Etats-Unis,”
Le Monde
, 24 March 1984, 3.

50
. “Mitterrand Leaving Problems Behind,”
New York Times
, 21 March 1984, A14.

51
. De Kergorlay and Legras, “Reagan-Mitterrand,” 4.

52
. Védrine,
Les Mondes
, 250.

53
. Frédéric Bozo, “Before the Wall: French Diplomacy and the Last Decade of the Cold War, 1979-1989,” in
The Last Decade of the Cold War
, ed. Olav Njølstad (London: Frank Cass, 2004), 288-316.

54
. All quotes in this paragraph are from Bozo, “Before the Wall,” 292-95. One official wrote, “whereas Western cohesion [is indispensable]…the [Atlantic] Alliance [should not be] a bloc at the service of the United States.”

55
. For an assessment of tiers-mondisme as a policy, see Marie-Claude Smouts, “La France et le Tiers-Monde ou comment gagner le sud sans perdre le nord,”
Politique étrangère
50, no. 2 (1985): 339-57.

56
. Dumas,
Affaires étrangères
, 78-79. Speaking of the Third World in Mexico, Mitterrand said in 1981, “There is not and there cannot be political stability without social justice. And when inequalities, injustices or backwardness of a society go too far, there is no established order, repressive as it may be, that can resist the rising up of life. The East-West conflict cannot explain the struggles of the ‘damned of the earth' for emancipation any more than it can help resolve them.” See Mitterrand,
Réflexions
, 316.

57
. U.S. Department of State,
French Public Opinion on Current Issues
, 2 April 1985, Department of State Office of Research, 1983-87, National Archives, RG 306, box 6, 1985 Briefing Papers; Sara Pais, “Plus ça change…ça change: A Survey of French-American Attitudes,”
France Magazine
6 (1986): 7.

58
. George Schultz,
Turmoil and Triumph
(New York: Scribner's, 1993), 300.

59
. For Reagan's use of Apollon to stop Mitterrand from aiding the Sandinistas, see Vincent Jauvert, “Mitterrand dans les dossiers secrets de la Maison-Blanche,”
Le Nouvel Observateur
, 22 August 2010, 32-35.

60
. John Vinocour, “Mitterrand Asks Streamlining of Annual Economic Meeting,”
New York Times
, 12 October 1982, A14.

61
. USIA,
French Public Opinion on Economic Summit Issues
, 18 April 1984, Office of Research, USIA, National Archives, RG 306, USIA, Research Memorandum, 1983-87, box 3, 1984; Smith and Wertman,
U.S.-WestEuropean Relations
, 224-29; L'Institut Français d'Opinion Publique (henceforth IFOP) poll, September 1981, cited in Fritsch-Bournazel, “France: Attachment,” 92. As late as 1986 a Gallup poll asking what issues most divided the two countries the French selected the dollar exchange rate as the number one difference—followed by problems in Latin America, the price of oil, and Africa; see Pais, “Plus ça change,” 7.

62
. SOFRES poll, November 1982, reported in Hastings and Hastings, eds.,
Index to International Public Opinion, 1983-1984
, 214.

63
. Smith and Wertman,
U.S.-West European Relations
, 225.

64
. Alan Dobson, “The Reagan Administration, Economic Warfare, and Starting to Close Down the Cold War,”
Diplomatic History
29 (2005): 531-56.

65
. See Antony J. Blinken,
Ally versus Ally: America, Europe, and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis
(New York: Praeger, 1987).