With Friends Like These: Entangled Nationalisms in the Canada–Quebec–France Triangle, 1945–1970 by David Meren (review)

Simply put, David Meren has produced a marvellous book. Based on research conducted in Ottawa, Paris and Quebec City, as well as a vast range of secondary literature, With Friends Like These is an exemplar of the new international history and should serve as a model for Canadian international historians. By fully delving into the Canada–France–Quebec triangle Meren has put this odd relationship into context. Indeed, in the book he endeavours to ‘put de Gaulle in his place’ (p. 5), by explaining how the General came to stand on a Montreal balcony, proclaim the need for Quebec’s independence, and thus brazenly interfered in the internal affairs of a close ally, one which had twice fought for French freedom in the twentieth century. Contextualising the incident is both important and intriguing.

The key to answering the question of how France and Canada drifted from allies to adversaries – chiefly, though not exclusively, on the issue of Quebec – stems, Meren shows, from a shared Franco-Canadian fear of American domination. Seeking to safeguard France, de Gaulle took an independent line in Europe; as Meren shows, he also took the line that an independent Quebec was the only way to safeguard the Québécois from absorption from the South. Oddly enough, he thought that his policy would aid the Canadians out of a belief that Quebec’s independence would lead to a stiffening of Canada’s spine and prompt Canadians to stand up to Uncle Sam. French policy – or at least the General’s policy – toward Canada reflected the broader Gaullist challenge to US hegemony. Ottawa, meanwhile, was hoping to find in Europe a counterbalance to the economic, cultural, political, and military domination by the United States. In their search to secure Europe as a counterweight, and with Franco–American relations strained, to say the least, the Canadians sought to repair transatlantic relations. In so doing, they confirmed de Gaulle’s sense that Ottawa had become Washington’s chore boy. Meren is also careful to show the Quebec perspective and clearly charts the evolution of the presumptive nation’s foreign policy and its courting of France, as well as the efforts of various Québécois nationalists to fend off English Canadian and American advances. Meren both delves into this triangular muddle and puts it all into perspective.

In examining this big picture – the broad cultural, economic and political forces at play from 1940 to 1970 – Meren is careful not to lose sight of small issues. Occasionally, though, people appear too infrequently. For instance, it would have been satisfying to see broader opinion, especially of de Gaulle’s cri du balcon. To take but two examples, what did French opinion think of this incident? Or Canada’s New Left radicals? This small point of criticism is made only because Meren’s deeply researched and well-written book was appetite-whetting. Hopefully, then, With Friends Like These will open up new avenues for research: notably, given that the United States was a central feature, an analysis of American views of this transatlantic contretemps. To raise this point, though, is not to criticise Meren’s excellent feat of international history.