De Gaulle Between Grain and Grandeur: The Political Economy of French EC Policy, 1958–1970 (Part 2)

The concluding segment of this two-part article explores two key episodes in French foreign policy under President Charles de Gaulle: (1) France’s veto of British membership in the European Economic Community (EEC), and (2) de Gaulle’s decisions to provoke and then resolve the “empty chair” crisis of 1965–1966. These two cases, like the two examined in Part 1 of this article, demonstrate the fundamental importance of economic considerations in de Gaulle’s policy toward the EEC. De Gaulle was a democratic politician first and a geopolitical visionary second. His experience tells us a great deal about the limits imposed by modern democratic politics on any leader who might hope to make statecraft serve an idiosyncratic political vision. The article concludes with an analysis of possible counterarguments and a discussion of the proper use of historical evidence.