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Imagining European Identity: French Elites and the American Challenge in the Pompidou–Nixon Era

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2010

AURÉLIE ÉLISA GFELLER
AURÉLIE ÉLISA GFELLER*
Affiliation:
Swiss National Science Foundation/European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Via delle Fontanelle 19, I-50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI), Italy; aurelie.gfeller@eui.eu.
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Abstract

Charles de Gaulle has cast a long shadow over French political history and history writing. In exploring the French response to the United States' 1973 ‘Year of Europe’ initiative, this article challenges the dominant scholarly paradigm, which emphasises continuity between the 1960s and the 1970s. Drawing on a wide range of French and US archives, it demonstrates that renewed concerns about US power spurred the French elites both to reappraise the value of collective European action in foreign policy and to foster a pioneering concept: a politically anchored – as opposed to a geographically circumscribed – ‘European identity’.

Inventer l'identité européenne: les élites françaises et le défi américain au temps de georges pompidou et richard nixon

Charles de Gaulle a profondément marqué de son empreinte l'histoire politique française. Cet article questionne le paradigme historiographique de continuité entre l'ère gaullienne et les années 1970. Il repose sur une analyse de l'attitude française face à l'initiative américaine pour une ‘année de l'Europe’. Sur la base de documents d'archives françaises et américaines, l'auteur démontre que cette initiative, par les craintes renouvelées d'hégémonie américaine qu'elle suscita, poussa les élites françaises à donner un nouvel élan au projet d'Europe politique. Elles révisèrent ainsi leur jugement sur le principe d'une action conjointe en matière de politique étrangère. Les élites développèrent surtout un concept novateur: celui d'une ‘identité européenne’ renvoyant non plus à un héritage culturel ancré dans la géographie, mais à une entité politique.

Die vorstellung einer europäischen identität: die französischen eliten und die amerikanische herausforderung in der pompidou-nixon ära

Charles de Gaulle hat einen langen Schatten über die politische Geschichte und Historiographie Frankreichs geworfen. Das vorherrschende wissenschaftliche Paradigma, das die Kontinuität zwischen den 1960er und 1970er Jahren betont, wird mit der Untersuchung der französischen Antwort auf die amerikanische Initiative ‘Jahr Europas’ von 1973 in diesem Artikel hinterfragt. Durch die Verwendung von Dokumenten aus französischen und amerikanischen Archiven zeigt die Autorin auf, dass sich die französischen Eliten erneut mit der Macht der USA beschäftigten. Dies führte nicht nur zu einer Neubeurteilung der Möglichkeiten einer kollektiven europäischen Aussenpolitik, sondern auch zur Entwicklung eines innovativen Konzepts: einer ‘europäischen Identität’, die nicht auf einer geographischen, sondern auf einer politischen Einheit basierte.

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Contemporary European History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , May 2010 , pp. 133 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Charles de Gaulle has cast a long shadow over French history and history writing. As a result, the scholarship on French political history during the 1970s tends to underscore the lasting influence of his legacy. European integration is no exception.Footnote 1 In investigating the French response to the United States’ 1973 ‘Year of Europe’ initiative, this study challenges this paradigm. Specifically, it demonstrates that renewed concerns about US power in 1973 prompted the French elites both to rearticulate and to transform the vision of a ‘European Europe’ advanced by de Gaulle in the early 1960s.Footnote 2 Not only did Georges Pompidou's government abandon its misgivings towards the mechanisms for European Policy Co-operation (EPC) established in 1970, but the French also spurred efforts to define and assert a ‘European identity’. This was a pioneering concept. Through the early 1970s, the term had chiefly been used to designate a geographically circumscribed cultural heritage.Footnote 3 In 1973 and 1974, by contrast, French officials and press institutions, as opinion-makers, applied it to the emerging European polity. They played a leading role in forging the ground-breaking Declaration on European Identity published by the nine member states of the European Communities (EC) in December 1970. The concept of a politically anchored European identity, moreover, quickly surged to the forefront of French political vocabulary. This discursive shift has largely been overlooked in the scholarship on French foreign and European policy.Footnote 4 I maintain that it was an important step towards greater identification with the nascent European entity on the part of the elites. The Gaullian notion of a ‘European Europe’ had appealed to a ‘union of states’. The term ‘European identity’, by contrast, implied that the nascent European entity could function as a locus of political legitimacy alongside and – possibly in competition with – the nation state. How did a US initiative foster the discursive construction and the popularisation of a politically grounded European identity? Drawing on a wide range of sources, including Pompidou's papers, recently declassified materials from the French foreign ministry (Quai d'Orsay), US government records and press archives, this essay proposes an answer to this intriguing question. In paying due attention to language and in highlighting the interconnections between words and power, the forthcoming study also fills a gap in the existing literature on the Year of Europe.Footnote 5 There was more to the French–US debate over the United States’ proposed transatlantic statement than ‘legalistic’ squabbling.Footnote 6 This seemingly innocuous declaration of intent aroused heated controversy because different wordings were perceived as legitimising competing geopolitical visions.

A delicate diplomatic dance: France and the Year of Europe

On 23 April 1973, Henry Kissinger, who was then serving as US President Richard Nixon's chief foreign policy adviser, gave the address at the annual luncheon of the Associated Press on the topic ‘The Year of Europe’.Footnote 7 The White House archives show that despite its odd timing – well into the first half of 1973 – this initiative owed little to the gaining momentum of Watergate.Footnote 8 Planning had begun as early as October 1972.Footnote 9 In focusing on Western Europe after the Vietnam War, the White House pursued a dual objective: to revitalise, and rekindle elite support for, the Atlantic Alliance in an era of nuclear parity; and to bring the defence, political and economic ‘interrelationships [between Western Europe and the United States] into a balance more satisfactory to the US’.Footnote 10 In other words, US officials – especially in the Trade and Treasury Departments – wanted Western Europe to make economic concessions – particularly with respect to the planned enlargement of the EC and defence burden-sharing – in exchange for continued military assistance.Footnote 11 In his speech, Kissinger gave its leaders something of an ultimatum. Calling for a new ‘Atlantic charter’, he declared that this document should be ready in time for Nixon's trip to Europe in the autumn. Heedless of European sensitivities, he proceeded to contrast the United States’ ‘global interests and responsibilities’ with Western Europe's ‘regional interests’.Footnote 12

Kissinger spoke against the backdrop of deteriorating Franco-American relations. A lull in bilateral relations had occurred during the final months of de Gaulle's rule and the first two years of Pompidou's presidency.Footnote 13 As of 1971, however, Nixon's unilateral decision to suspend dollar–gold convertibility – the cornerstone of the Bretton Woods monetary order – had strained relations with France. Although Pompidou subsequently brokered a dollar devaluation agreement, fixed rates soon gave way to a floating rate regime, leaving him with a bitter feeling. Progress in US–Soviet détente further damaged the French–US relationship. Following the 1972 US–Soviet Strategic Arms Limitation Talks agreement (SALT 1), the June 1973 US–Soviet Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War came across in France as undermining the credibility of US nuclear deterrence. Worse, perhaps, these two agreements raised the spectre of a US–Soviet ‘condominium’.Footnote 14

French appraisals of Kissinger's speech were overwhelmingly negative. Foreign Minister Michel Jobert pointedly summarised Pompidou's and his own views: ‘It's none of his business!’Footnote 15 Jobert struck a Gaullian note: ‘It was the same old view; the US pressed for strengthening the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) beyond its present scope and structure, and it requested its members to abide by the prevailing US foreign policy consensus.’Footnote 16 French officials largely shared Jobert's assessment of the Year of Europe as a US attempt to reassert its leadership.Footnote 17 Future Foreign Minister Jean Sauvagnargues, who was then serving as ambassador in Bonn, chastised the Nixon administration for seeking to build a US-ruled ‘global alliance’ (groupement mondial), in which ‘Europe’ – used, as was often the case, as shorthand for both European states and the EC – would play a subservient role.Footnote 18 Mirroring official criticisms, the leading French press institutions voiced concern over the US quest for dominance. Alluding to Kissinger's proposal to include Japan in a revitalised Atlantic partnership, Le Monde eloquently posed the question: ‘why should the Atlantic Alliance not be extended to the Pacific Ocean, since it already encompassed the Mediterranean?’ There was an obvious answer: ‘this gigantic oceanic construct’ posed a threat to ‘Europe's distinctiveness’.Footnote 19

Elsewhere in Western Europe, Kissinger's speech received mixed reviews. The British foreign secretary, Sir Alec Douglas Home, welcomed Kissinger's language as ‘realistic and timely’ but wished the EC had had more time to ‘find its way to common positions with greater deliberation’.Footnote 20 On a long-planned visit to Washington, the West German federal chancellor, Willy Brandt, offered little besides goodwill, and successfully petitioned Nixon to drop the phrase ‘Atlantic charter’. Although they harboured reservations about certain aspects of the US plan – notably its treatment of economic and defence issues as ‘one ball of wax’ – British and West German authorities wished to give US entreaties a constructive response.Footnote 21 Other EC countries were keen to prevent their exclusion from quadripartite talks between the United States, France, Britain and West Germany. A consensus soon emerged among France's EC partners on using EPC to draft a proposed US–European statement.

Facing US and EC pressure, Paris resorted to dilatory tactics. Archival records reveal that France was less devious than Kissinger made it out to be in his memoirs. Through most of the summer, Quai officials endeavoured to ‘buy time’Footnote 22 rather than build a European ‘coalition of negation’.Footnote 23 At the 23 July meeting of EPC, Jobert did not agree to a ‘declaration approach’.Footnote 24 Quite the opposite: he resorted to a strategy of deliberate delay and urged his EC colleagues to focus on a list of transatlantic dialogue topics instead.Footnote 25 In line with an earlier British proposal, he also pressed for a common definition of European identity. The British Foreign Office (FCO) had suggested characterising the EC's identity vis-à-vis the United States. In appropriating this idea, the Quai d'Orsay gave it a wider dimension. Jobert's declared objective was to define European identity in and of itself (as opposed to in relation to the United States) and to proclaim it everywhere (tous azimuts).Footnote 26

Due to mounting US, West German, British and Italian pressure, the Quai d'Orsay reappraised its strategy. At the beginning of the summer, the FCO had proposed issuing two declarations: one that pertained to NATO, and the other to EC–US relations. In August, it presented the Quai d'Orsay with a proposed EC–US draft statement. Quai officials recommended endorsing the British approach in order to prevent West Germany and Italy from giving in further to US pressure.Footnote 27 In late August, Jobert lent his support to the British document subject to modifications that underscored the distinctiveness of the EC and its member states. In doing so, he was building on the Franco-British axis that marked Pompidou's presidency.Footnote 28 Soon thereafter, the EC foreign ministers entrusted the Danish EC presidency with the task of submitting the finalised draft to newly appointed Secretary of State Kissinger.Footnote 29

EC governments’ behaviour met with disappointment in Washington. Kissinger and his aides had envisioned US-led multilateral talks. They were confronted instead with a ‘fait accompli’. Kissinger bluntly conveyed his dissatisfaction to the Danish envoy on 25 September: ‘for the US it is a new and extraordinary phenomenon in that Europe speaks with one voice, which we welcome, but that in the preparations of its position we were not consulted’.Footnote 30 Beyond the procedural dimension, the lack of prior consultations meant that the content of the EC document fell far short of US expectations. It did not hint at any new framework for resolving transatlantic economic and military issues. Rather than exalting transatlantic unity, it highlighted the distinctiveness of unifying Europe. The Nixon administration, however, was not about to admit defeat. It would be quick to try and regain the initiative.

Irreconcilable visions of European unity? The 1973 draft EC–US declaration

The draft EC–US declaration triggered an intense round of bargaining. As early as 29 September, the Nixon administration set out a series of amendments, which France vigorously rejected. French officials and press commentators analysed the ensuing discussions as a contest between competing visions of European unity. France, they argued, conceived of a united Europe as an independent world actor; the United States, by contrast, viewed it as part of a tightly knit Atlantic community placed firmly under US leadership. The French arguments against the US amendments were rooted in fears of national decline and loss of national identity. Yet they were couched in a characteristically European idiom, with an emphasis on the distinctiveness of the emerging European entity.

The US amendments introduced a long-contentious concept in French–US relations, namely ‘partnership’. John F. Kennedy's 1962 call for a US–European partnership – reiterated in his 1963 address in the Frankfurt Assembly Hall – had aroused suspicions in Paris. Kennedy had taken great care to stress that such a partnership would rest on a basis of ‘full equality’.Footnote 31 De Gaulle, however, was unconvinced.Footnote 32 A decade later, French authorities were still reluctant to enter into an alliance ‘between wolf and sheep’.Footnote 33 Pompidou clearly disliked the word. ‘I certainly do not want it’, he wrote in the margins of a report.Footnote 34 The Quai d'Orsay thus successfully petitioned its EC partners to expunge all lexical variants of the term from the proposed US changes.Footnote 35

French opposition to the concept of partnership was rooted in an awareness of power asymmetries. To the Quai d'Orsay there could only be a meaningful partnership between two equal partners, which remained elusive in the context of US–European relations.Footnote 36 The French daily Le Figaro shared the government's misgivings. A transatlantic partnership, it stated, implied that ‘Europe’ would ‘tag along behind its powerful American “partner”’.Footnote 37 Etienne Burin des Roziers, permanent representative to the EC, spoke along similar lines. In this term, he claimed, was subsumed the United States’ desire to reduce the EC to a docile ally.Footnote 38

‘Interdependence’, an increasingly popular construct in US political circles and academia in the 1970s, proved just as divisive. The ascendancy of this concept may be traced to declining US power in an era of economic crisis and nuclear parity. Harvard professors Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye defined ‘complex interdependence’ as an ideal type characterised by numerous channels of communication, lack of hierarchy of inter-state negotiation topics and reduced usability of force.Footnote 39 Their argument implied that complex interdependence reduced the ability of the superpowers to influence outcomes based on their military superiority. French officials, by contrast, interpreted interdependence as denoting European subordination. Linking the two concepts of interdependence and partnership, Burin des Roziers maintained that they laid the basis for strengthened US dominance in Western Europe and in the EC in particular.Footnote 40 Burin des Roziers was certainly among those who thought that the adjective ‘interdependent’ could be interpreted as ‘I depend, you rule’.Footnote 41 French dailies were similarly suspicious of the term. Le Figaro praised the government's efforts to resist growing US–European ‘interdependence’ and thereby assert ‘Europe's personality’.Footnote 42 The communist left similarly viewed transatlantic interdependence and European independence as antagonistic concepts.Footnote 43

French officials coined the word ‘globalisation’ to designate a related concern: cross-issue bargaining. They had been criticising for some time the putative goal of the Nixon administration to pursue cross-topic transatlantic negotiations, but they did not use the term ‘globalisation’ until after Kissinger's Year of Europe speech. I found its first occurrence in a Quai circular telegram dated 26 April 1973.Footnote 44 Chastising the United States’ ‘globalisation intentions’, this cable stated – as the Quai d'Orsay would in numerous other instances – that trade, currency and defence issues were best discussed within separate, specialised institutions: the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and NATO.Footnote 45 Throughout the protracted negotiations over the EC–US declaration in autumn 1973, French diplomats used this term to repel any proposed wording that could imply a negotiating link between economic and military matters.

French–US disagreements also centred on the notion of ‘institutionalisation’. Since the early 1970s, the Nixon administration had called for a more formalised EC–US consultation framework. The two-stage process by which EC countries had reached consensus on a draft declaration prior to submitting it to Kissinger had given the matter added urgency. One of the proposed US amendments was therefore designed to prevent this scenario from occurring again. It provided for ‘consultative and cooperative arrangements’ between the United States and the EC/EPC.Footnote 46 In December 1973, Kissinger reiterated his wish to have ‘frank consultations’ on issues affecting US interests ‘before final decisions are taken by the Community’.Footnote 47 He prefaced his demand by saying that the United States had ‘no intention of becoming a tenth member of the Community’, but to no avail. Any institutionalised EC–US ties, Pompidou had told Brandt in November 1973, meant granting the United States the status of a ‘censor’ or even an EC member.Footnote 48 To Jacques Kosciusko-Morizet, the French ambassador in Washington, the procedure used by the nine EC countries to put together the draft declaration was essential for the self-assertion of ‘Europe’.Footnote 49

In crystallising disagreements over the organisation of the West, the draft EC–US declaration encouraged dichotomous thinking in both Paris and Washington. US officials endeavoured to buttress their stance through mutually exclusive categories: Atlantic cohesion and Atlantic disunity. In September 1973, Kissinger urged EC leaders to decide whether they wished to build ‘Europe’ at the expense of Atlantic relations, or instead wanted to strengthen the transatlantic relationship.Footnote 50 He put it more crudely in his December 1973 report for Nixon: ‘Clearly our recent tough talk has had its impact and we can expect the Europeans to curb their impulse to show their “identity” by kicking us.’Footnote 51 French decision- and opinion-makers, in turn, advanced another set of binary categories. They reasserted the notion of a ‘European Europe’, opposing it to an ‘Atlantic Europe’.Footnote 52 The Quai's political director, François Puaux, for instance, used these two categories to analyse the stance of his EC counterparts on the US amendments.Footnote 53Le Monde recognised that setting a ‘European Europe’ against an ‘American Europe’ was an oversimplification. ‘[But] just as a good caricature reduces the human physiognomy to its essentials’, it stated, ‘this [formula] brought into sharp focus the terms of the debate.’Footnote 54

Building a common political identity: the Declaration on European Identity

Just as talks over a putative EC–US statement came to a standstill, EC countries issued their Declaration on European Identity. This document, published in Copenhagen on 14 December, affirmed the building blocks – institutional, political, economic and cultural – of a united Europe.Footnote 55 Although it grew out of joint EC discussions, it was closely modelled on a French draft. The French lead in this initiative did not imply any plain endorsement of supranational principles. Indeed, Quai d'Orsay officials remained prickly about sovereignty issues. In spurring efforts to define a politically anchored European identity, however, they moved beyond the strictly national reference framework that had shaped de Gaulle's call for a ‘European Europe’.

The initial French draft, dated 20 July 1973, struck a defensive note.Footnote 56 Its basic principle was differentiation. Any definition of European identity, it stated, meant distinguishing the EC from other political entities. Several of its definitional provisions referred to the colonial past of EC states and their efforts to retain sway in the developing world. The text, moreover, equated ‘identity’ with ‘independence’, and it specified the conditions for maintaining European independence – notably a European defence force and efforts to safeguard the diverse cultural legacy of ‘Europe’. The cultural element reflected enduring anxieties over Americanisation, as did a series of books published during the 1970s.Footnote 57 It also spoke to the long-standing role of the French state in promoting cultural influence (rayonnement).Footnote 58 The draft ended on a Gaullist note: ‘Europe’ should not be reduced to a geopolitical ‘stake’, ‘a subject of bargaining’ or ‘a subservient group of states’.Footnote 59

Although reflecting the same desire to preserve European – that is, ultimately, French – influence and cultural distinctiveness, the draft presented by the Quai d'Orsay in September 1973 was more carefully worded.Footnote 60 The concept of independence was less central to the definition of European identity. The document reiterated France's rejection of institutionalised, ‘globalised’ EC–US talks. The range of topics discussed under the heading ‘European identity vis-à-vis the rest of the world’, however, was broader, including not only the United States and former colonies but also India, China, Canada, Eastern Europe and détente.

The two other drafts submitted, by Britain and Ireland respectively, differed in focus. The British document was entitled ‘The Identity of the Nine vis-à-vis the United States’. Although starting with a general definition of European identity, it explicitly sought to lay the basis for a transatlantic dialogue.Footnote 61 The Irish draft, by contrast, put forward a definition that emphasised the institutional underpinnings of the EC and the intention of the EC heads of state or government to achieve a ‘European union’ by 1980, as stated in their 1972 Paris summit communiqué.Footnote 62

Ensuing EPC talks on European identity stumbled at defence and foreign policy matters. The Quai d'Orsay was wary of Britain's suggestions to refer to a ‘common foreign policy’ and to stipulate that EC states’ bilateral contacts with third countries would rest on jointly pre-agreed positions. To French diplomats, such provisions were designed to make EPC more ‘constraining’.Footnote 63 France and Denmark opposed Britain's proposal to call for a ‘European defence policy’. Interestingly, the Quai d'Orsay's July memorandum had referred to a ‘European defence’.Footnote 64 This shift most likely reflected Pompidou's doubts over the EC states’ readiness to co-ordinate their defence efforts, let alone build a common defence force.Footnote 65 France and Ireland also rejected Britain's suggested reference to ‘an adequate and autonomous defence within the Atlantic Alliance’. French officials interpreted this provision as enhancing NATO's Eurogroup, to which France did not belong. Pompidou had made it clear that ‘we will not let ourselves be led into NATO through the Eurogroup’.Footnote 66 All these issues were settled after a few weeks of negotiation. The final wording on defence was inspired by a French suggestion.Footnote 67 The Quai d'Orsay also imposed Pompidou's foreign policy formula: a ‘European policy’ rather than a ‘common foreign policy’.Footnote 68

On 14 December, the EC foreign ministers chose to publish in Copenhagen what they had initially conceived as an internal working paper. The Copenhagen Declaration on European Identity was based on the French draft, but a certain amount of revision had occurred. Parts I and II still described the internal characteristics of the EC (‘The Unity of the Nine Member Countries of the Community’) and its identity vis-à-vis the rest of the world (‘The European Identity in Relation to the World’). Part III, in contrast, was new. It sketched the future of European unification (‘The Dynamic Nature of the Construction of a United Europe’), with an emphasis on building ‘a genuinely European foreign policy’ and transforming ‘the whole complex of . . . [intra-EC] relations into a European Union’.

The Copenhagen Declaration broke new ground in affirming the civilisational and cultural underpinnings of a united Europe. Neither the EC's founding documents (the 1957 Rome and the 1965 merger treaties) nor contemporaneous reports and statements (the 1970 and 1973 EPC reports, the 1969 Hague and 1972 Paris summit statements) had used words such as ‘culture’, ‘value’ and ‘civilisation’ in connection to a united Europe.Footnote 69 Culture had been one of the pillars of de Gaulle's 1960 proposal for intergovernmental cooperation, along with foreign policy, economics and defence.Footnote 70 The committee in charge of discussing this proposal had created a group responsible for drafting proposals for cultural cooperation.Footnote 71 The words ‘culture’ and ‘civilization’ had been mentioned in both versions of the Fouchet Plan – named after the committee's chairman, Christian Fouchet.Footnote 72 Not only had the Fouchet Plan foundered on concerns about de Gaulle's intention to torpedo the Community institutions, but it had also referred exclusively to a ‘union of states’. As evident from its title, the Declaration, in contrast, encompassed both EC states and the Community. In highlighting cultural elements and shared values, the 1973 text thus provided the nascent European entity with a broad value and civilisational basis:

1. The Nine European States might have been pushed towards disunity by their history and by selfishly defending misjudged interests. But they have overcome their past enmities and have decided that unity is a basic European necessity to ensure the survival of the civilization which they have in common.

The Nine wish to ensure that the cherished values of their legal, political and moral order are respected, and to preserve the rich variety of their national cultures. Sharing as they do the same attitudes to life, based on a determination to build a society which measures up to the needs of the individual, they are determined to defend the principles of representative democracy, of the rule of law, of social justice – which is the ultimate goal of economic progress – and of respect for human rights . . .

. . .

3. The diversity of cultures within the framework of a common European civilization, the attachment to common values and principles, the increasing convergence of attitudes to life, the awareness of having specific interests in common and the determination to take part in the construction of a United Europe, all give the European Identity its originality and its own dynamism.Footnote 73

Such statements may seem innocuous. Unlike recent efforts to issue a European constitution, European officials made no attempt to specify the content of the EC's civilisational heritage.Footnote 74 The political values listed in Paragraph 1 – representative democracy and respect for human rights, the rule of law and social justice – had already acquired quasi-universal status. It was nonetheless the first attempt by EC governing elites to define jointly the European project in broader political and cultural terms.

The Copenhagen Declaration marked an important milestone in the construction of a politically bounded European identity. In acting as a catalyst, the ‘American challenge’ – to quote the title of Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber's famous book – gave it a defensive twist.Footnote 75 The mindset of French officials and their EC counterparts, however, was not solely defensive. European diplomats forged a consensus on a broad definition of European identity that encompassed the various facets of the emerging European polity – including culture, politics and foreign policy. Before long, this endeavour had struck a chord with wider segments of French elite opinion.

A new legitimising category of French political life

French discussion of a European identity did not remain confined to a small circle of bureaucrats. The term quickly became a keyword in French political discourse, as evidenced by government records and press commentaries. Journalists and government actors primarily referred to the distinctiveness of a united Europe with respect to the outside world. Yet they also occasionally emphasised its internal characteristics, pointing the way to a broader understanding of the term.

In the early 1970s, French officials had sporadically used the phrase ‘European identity’ in connection with the EC, but the concept of a politically defined European identity did not gain wider currency until summer 1973.Footnote 76 French diplomats used it during the negotiations over the EC–US draft to buttress their opposition to US policy. Pompidou and Burin des Roziers censured the September 1973 US amendments, arguing that they threatened ‘Europe's identity’.Footnote 77 Two months later, Quai secretary-general Geoffroy de Courcel reiterated French opposition to institutionalised EC–US talks on the grounds that EC countries had only just begun to forge a common identity.Footnote 78 Quai officials also referred to European identity to repel the notion of a transatlantic partnership and the US–Japanese plan for a triangular declaration.Footnote 79 Quai Asia director Henri Froment-Meurice told Japan's French ambassador that any triangular designs would undermine the EC's efforts to define a separate identity.Footnote 80

The concept of European identity also became central to wider discussions of world affairs. In the wake of the fourth Arab-Israeli war, in October 1973, French officials used it as they watched with consternation France's (and Britain's) de facto exclusion from the ceasefire and peace negotiations. After initial hesitation, the Quai d'Orsay developed a three-pronged approach to the Middle East crisis and the ensuing oil price shock: strengthen France's bilateral ties with Arab oil producers, promote a Euro-Arab dialogue as part of a broader consumer–producer co-operation strategy, and foster an EC energy policy based on France's dirigiste take on the oil trade. The Nixon administration developed a competing blueprint for solving the oil crisis: enhanced co-operation among oil-importing advanced countries. French officials thus invoked the nascent European identity in an effort to win over their eight EC partners. After the February 1974 Franco-EC split over energy, Sauvagnargues wrote that the eight's capitulation to US pressure had seriously jeopardised European identity.Footnote 81

More broadly, French officials subsumed under the concept of European identity their ideal of a European world actor. Speaking in front of the Rotary Club of Toledo, Ohio, Kosciusko-Morizet urged US authorities to accept ‘Europe's’ claim to world influence and its attendant ‘duty’ to assert its ‘identity’.Footnote 82 In a set of hitherto undiscovered documents – handwritten notes and a memorandum on European relance – newly appointed Foreign Minister Sauvagnargues equated in 1974 the assertion of a European identity with that of a European voice in the international arena.Footnote 83

This line of argument resonated with press institutions as shapers, if not the mouthpiece, of elite opinion. Le Figaro warned that US demands implied an unwanted interference in the EC's internal affairs and hence sounded the death knell for European identity.Footnote 84 On a more general level, the French daily linked the concept of European identity to the forging of a European position in international affairs. Praising the EC countries’ decision to try to define a common identity, it stated that they would finally be able to speak ‘with a single voice’.Footnote 85 Likewise, Le Monde journalists implied that a European identity presupposed a European foreign policy.Footnote 86 In his newspaper column, Raymond Aron, a leading figure of the French intelligentsia, similarly suggested that the concept of European identity encompassed a common European diplomacy.Footnote 87

Some commentaries – although mostly from outside governmental circles – already hinted at a more broadly conceived, politically defined European identity. In a speech in Washington, D.C., the French European Commission president, François-Xavier Ortoli, drew an analogy between European and US identity:

Just as Californians and Texans travelling to Europe are viewed as ‘Americans’, I have come here as a ‘European’. I can sense that a European identity is emerging in our nine EC member states, and I believe that the European people must live in ever closer union.Footnote 88

Ortoli remained vague about the nature of this emerging European identity. Pierre Drouin was more specific in Le Monde. Making a normative claim, he cautioned that a united Europe would only find its identity if it fostered a distinct societal model, eschewing the trappings of dogmatic Marxism and the ‘Promethean frenzy’ of American consumerism.Footnote 89 In the wake of the fourth Arab-Israeli war, Le Figaro journalist Roger Massip merged the older, cultural meaning of the term with its new, politically circumscribed acceptation. European nations, he stated, should act jointly to regain their influence in Middle Eastern and world affairs and to safeguard their distinct ‘civilization’ and ‘identity’.Footnote 90 In another instance, Massip defined European identity in institutional terms. Its assertion, he claimed, required strengthening the EC institutions: the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (EP). He thus urged the EC heads of state or government to forge ahead with institutional reforms.Footnote 91

By 1974, ‘European identity’ had become a key legitimising category of French political discourse. Reflecting its origins in multilateral diplomacy, the term was primarily used to conjure up the vision of a European world actor. In line with the Copenhagen Declaration, however, French decision- and opinion-makers had also begun to give it a socio-cultural substance. This was a first step towards a wider understanding of this concept.

Conclusions: words and beliefs

In fuelling Franco–US rivalries, US plans to revitalise the Atlantic alliance, together with the Middle East crisis, prompted Pompidou's government to try and build the emerging European entity as a world actor counterbalancing US power. Kissinger said as much in his memoirs: ‘An American initiative enabled Jobert to pursue the old Gaullist dream of building Europe on an anti-American basis.’Footnote 92 Use of the United States as a defining ‘other’ was rooted in a long tradition of positioning it as a mirror and foil to European societies, dating back to Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America.Footnote 93 Since the inter-war years, the United States had typically served as a reference in discussions of modernity.Footnote 94 In France, such commentaries often included elements of anti-Americanism: Americanisation was portrayed as a threat to France's national culture and identity.Footnote 95 In 1973, by contrast, French decision- and opinion-makers set the United States against a united Europe. This paradigm was not wholly new. The Gaullian concept of a ‘European Europe’ had already been constructed in opposition to the United States. Not only did French government actors and press commentators in 1973 help to anchor this paradigm firmly in political consciousness, they also added a layer of complexity to French political discourse. Unlike ‘a European Europe’, the notion of a politically anchored European identity challenged the primacy of the nation-state as the paramount unit of political legitimacy. The 1973–4 popularisation of this concept thus was a significant step towards a greater allegiance to the European polity on the part of the French elites – one that revived and strengthened the pro-European tradition fostered by a number of French leaders under the Fourth Republic, notably among the Christian democrats (Robert Schumann, Pierre Pflimlin), the socialists (Guy Mollet, Christian Pineau) and the left radicals (René Mayer, Maurice Faure).Footnote 96

This new keyword in the French political vocabulary was particularly significant because the Yom Kippur War spurred the Quai d'Orsay to Europeanise its Arab policy and because Pompidou's April 1974 death in office subsequently opened the way to a re-charting of French foreign and European policy.Footnote 97 In May, the French elected a centrist to the presidency, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, thereby putting an end to sixteen years of Gaullist rule. Giscard did not have much room to manoeuvre, given Gaullist dominance in the government coalition. Nonetheless, he spearheaded reforms that marked a departure from the intergovernmental Gaullist model. The final statement of the December 1974 Paris summit, which was shaped in part by French proposals, provided for both (intergovernmental) institutionalised summitry – the European Council – and enhanced supranational decision-making and legitimacy – notably through an extension of the scope of majority voting in the Council of Ministers, the direct election of the EP through universal suffrage and strengthened EP powers. This set of supranational reforms was proof that, as the newly elected president, Giscard was determined to reorient, if only slightly, the course of France's European policy.Footnote 98 Some of these proposals would only materialise under his successors, but Giscard would face down the Gaullists on the issue of democratic representation, paving the way for the first elections to the EP in June 1979.Footnote 99 All in all, the institutional relance of 1974 helped to flesh out the notion of a politically defined European identity.

In its 1973 definition, the concept of European identity encompassed the ideal of a European world actor. In the wake of the first oil price shock, EC countries failed to match words with deeds. In summer and autumn 1973, they did speak with a single voice to the United States, and they even issued a common declaration on the Arab-Israeli conflict. With skyrocketing energy bills, however, France's EC partners saw fit to accommodate US concerns. They lent their support to the November 1974 creation of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which France did not join until 1992. The controversial EC–US draft statement was shelved, but in June 1974, NATO members – France included – signed a declaration that contained stronger language on inter-allied consultations than French authorities had initially been prepared to accept. Nonetheless, the years 1973 and 1974 were a critical moment in the strivings of the EC/European Union (EU) towards international self-assertion. The Year of Europe and the Middle East and oil crises, together with the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), gave EPC a burst of momentum shortly after its creation.Footnote 100 The Copenhagen Declaration, moreover, was an important landmark in the construction of a European political identity and should not be dismissed as a mere ‘footnote in EU history’.Footnote 101 Subsequent documents – the 1978 Copenhagen European Council statement, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty and the 1999 Amsterdam Treaty – elaborated on its founding political principles.Footnote 102 The twin notions of civilisational unity and cultural diversity would become central to EC/EU political discourse, as exemplified by the phrase ‘unity in diversity’ in the 2004 draft Constitutional Treaty. And ‘European identity’ has to this date remained a key category of French political life.Footnote 103

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9 In November 1973, Kissinger complained that the NSC staff had not moved swiftly enough to prepare a new initiative on Europe (Telephone conversation (telcon) Kissinger/Peter Flanigan, 17 Nov. 1972, Nixon Presidential Materials (NPM), National Security Council (NSC), Kissinger files, telcons, 17). A week later, he commissioned a trans-departmental study of all current and future issues in transatlantic relations: National Security Study Memorandum 164 (NSC, NSSM 164, 18 Dec. 1972, NPM, NSC, Institutional files, 194).

10 NSC, NSSM 164.

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12 ‘Kissinger: Address at Associated Press Luncheon’.

13 Vaïsse, ‘Les “relations spéciales”‘; Soutou, ‘Georges Pompidou et Valéry Giscard d'Estaing’.

14 French officials frequently used this term to analyse US–Soviet relations. See, e.g., Jacques Kosciusko-Morizet (ambassador in Washington), diplomatic dispatch 65, 9 July 1973, French Foreign Ministry (MAE), Soviet files 1971–6, 3693.

15 MAE, oral archives, Jobert, interview, 18 Sept. 1990.

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