Charles De Gaulle and French Conflicts with NATO

Paper Summary:

The paper is divided up into three sections. The first section is a brief history of the events that led up to De Gaulle's decision to withdraw France from NATO. His opinions are given, as well as the pros and cons of having a European power leave NATO at the height of the Cold War. This section, as well as the entire paper, is written from the perspective that De Gaulle felt that the eventual Americanization of world affairs would only lead to disaster. The second section is an analysis of what happened to France politically after De Gaulle left NATO. Specific events, such as France becoming more autonomous in European affairs, are given, and how France began to rebuild the pride it had lost after World War II is discussed. Finally, the last section deals with De Gaulle as a politician. His strengths of verbal persuasion and commitment to returning France to a world power status are discussed, as is how he felt that NATO was standing in the way of French progress.

From the Paper:

"After World War II, the countries of Europe were ravaged by a war that caused millions of causalities and billions of dollars worth of damage to farms and businesses. France had suffered greatly due to the occupation of Nazi Germany, but upon the liberation of the country by The Allies and the appointment of the popular French resistance hero General Charles De Gaulle as head of the provisional government in 1945, a new Europe was looking to be born in the wake of the deadliest war in human history. Europe would be greatly influenced in the coming decades by the spread of communism and by both America's and The Soviet Union's foreign policies, but in the midst of this struggle for control over Europe, France would remain steadfast in it's political and social independence as Charles De Gaulle was passionate about making France a power in the world once more. This desire to return France to her past glory and De Gaulle's aspiration to remove American, British and Soviet influence from France's own foreign policy decisions were prime reasons for De Gaulle's displeasure with the NATO Alliance and which would eventually cause De Gaulle to remove and distance France from the complexity of entangling alliances after World War II. With France strongly against the NATO agreement that was signed in 1949, De Gaulle attempted to rebuild Europe with France being the main power instead of allowing "foreign meddling in France's political agenda"."

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