what were the problems with actualising de Gaulle's dream of a common European foreign policy?

Question

charles de gaulle's aim after the second world war was to form a policy for the european community

Answer 1

He was ahead of his time.

He and Churchill didn't get on and he objected to any American involvement.

I met him on a couple of occassions and many of his then ideas, are in fact in operation now.

Answer 2

The first, and most obvious problem Charles de Gaulle didn´t have a dream of a common European foreign policy?

What Charles de Gaulle had was a`post-war France still with a largely peasant ( subsistence farming ) population who were likely to get more and more grumpy and difficult as time went on, and he ccoked up this perfect plan to bump the problem up to another level.

It was called the French Farmer´s Club, but for the sake of the unsuspecting other members it acqwuired the knick-name of the Treaty of Rome, and later the Common Market, and later the European Economic Community, and later the European Union, and therein lies a clue....why do they keep changing the name ?

Answer .... to keep the British guessing, it´s a bit like hide and seek, th e
Anyway, back to de Gaulle, crafty old bugger that he was, having spent most of WW II hiding under Churchill´s wing in London, he immediately provided evidence of his immense gratitude by starting a new club, with the sole major purpose of keeping the Brits out. It was probably all the chip butties he had to eat during the war.

So......there you have it, de Gaulle´s dream, keeping French farmers of his back, and teaching Les Rosbifs a lesson they wouldn´t forget in a hurry.

Answer 3

There were fundmental problems with his own position; wanting a European state to rival the USA and USSR but still wishing to maintain Frances sovereignty, national identity and interests. These two aims were, inevitably, mutually irreconcilable.

De Gaulle had a vision of a Europe that would rival the great superpowers - une troisieme suerpuissance. However, his overpowering belief in the integrity of the nation state also meant that he was antagonistic to any supranational organisations that would undermine sovereignty. His vision of Europe then, was of une Europe des États or une Europe des patries working together to their mutual benefit.

This partly explains de Gaulle's suspicion of the UK and his veto of the UK's attempts (1963 and 1966-7) to join the Common Market after years of careful preparation. De Gaulle felt that the UK would not work towards a greater European good and une Europe européenne and that the British would inevitably represent the interests of the USA and the Commonwealth. The UK's Atlantic biais would pull against the interests of an independent Europe. The fear of and hostility to perceived US hegemony was very much a central part of de Gaulle's thinking.

A good example of this took place in 1965 when de Gaulle decided to abandon the dollar as the key unit of financial exchange and return to the pre-war gold standard. International financial exchanges should, he argued, be based on gold and not on any single currency reflecting the economic strengths of a single nation.
It was logical, in the context of de Gaulle's desire for France to return to its former state of global greatness and his antagonism to US hegemony, that de Gaulle would pay special attention to the development of the military and to the creation of an independant nuclear capacity. De Gaulle's pessimistic vision of the world in which individual nations were engaged in a constant struggle with others to protect their own interests reinforced this conviction.

In the autumn of 1966 de Gaulle demanded that Nato to remove its army from France. French military command was taken out of NATO and returned to national command. Inevitably, this created chaos in NATO with the evacuation of dozens of military sites. De Gaulle was committed to an independent France in an independent Europe and would not countenance American military leadership.

It was logical given de Gaulle's vision for France as a major world power that he thought it appropriate for France to take a leading role in world affairs, particlarly those parts of the world that were once subject to French influence. At the height of America's war in Vietnam, he defended right of the Vietnamese to self-determination. In September 1966, he visited Vietnam where he was warmly welcomed. He frequently spoke out against US war there and for the peoples of the Third World. The Left, of course, approved of his policies

Answer 4

de Gaulle? mandella? great? neither could hold a candle to Churchill and Thatcher. The answer to your question is de Gaulle
hated the anglo saxon alliance so much because he was jealous of our great empire and american know- how and power he was constantly sulking to Churchill during the war and yet the great man was bending over backwards to help him. Churchill was against Britain joining because then as now our destiny and fortune lies with the commonwealth and the USA.

Answer 5

Like all relly great ideas the leaders of other countries could not see any monetry advantages in a total peace and thus it was not given the trial it deserved. After Mandella De Gaulle is my second greatest man in my lifetime.

Answer 6

Nationalism, it has always been Europes` problem.