Can France Survive German Reunification?

CAN FRANCE SURVIVE GERMAN REUNIFICATION? Patrick McCarthy Franee lived German reunification as a mild trauma. Mild because at a popular level people believed what their elites had been telling them for forty years, namely that reunification was a French and Western, as well as a German goal.1 A trauma because the elites had, while paying lip service to reunification, pursued policies which presupposed the division of Germany. French apprehension emerged in books like Georges Valance's France and Germany: The Return ofBismarck, which deals with the now fashionable theme ofFrench decadence and worries that Germany will once again seek her special destiny in Mitteleuropa. This book is a symptom of malaise rather than an analysis of the real difficulties which the destruction of the Berlin Wall posed—and poses—for France. Reunification threatened the delicate equilibrium of the FrancoGerman relationship, whichhadbecomethe centerpiece ofFrench policyinthe overlapping fields of the domestic economy, Europe and security. It came at a moment when the Mitterrand government was encoimtering other difficulties , such as persistent unemployment and a wave of racial tension. 1. Sixty-one percent ofFrench people favored German reunification and only 15 percent opposed it. The figures for Britain were 45 and 30 percent. Source: Georges Valance, France-Allemagne: le retour de Bismarck (Paris: Flammarion, 1990), p. 264. Patrick McCarthy is Professor of European Studies at SAIS, Bologna Center. He has co-authored and edited The French Socialists in Power and written many articles on French and Italian politics. He currently is working on a book on France and the gamble of 1993. 85 86 SAISREVIEW These problems do not, however, justify apocalyptic gloom. The vision, common in the late 1980s, ofa Europe led by France and Germany marching towards unity in 1992 was unreal. German reunification merely laid bare problems that were inherent in the difficult FrancoGerman dialogue. If it exacerbated most of the problems, it created one opportunity for France, as the government came to realize. In this article we shall situate the Franco-German relationship in its historical context and examine the political and economic issues it was facing in mid-1989. Then we shall see how the French lived the months after the breaching ofthe Wall. In conclusion we shall analyze the ways in which France is adapting to a situation which, while seeming strikingly novel, offers new versions of old issues. Living Next to the Germans The intense popular dislike of Germany in the early postwar years did not prevent French elites from deciding that a way must be found to live peaceably with the Germans. Indeed, two complementary ways were found: the first was to involve West Germany in a Western European order and the second was to engage directly with her. Initially the first method was more important. The Schuman Plan, which placed Western European coal and steel production under a common international control, was in large part a French initiative. In this sense, it is correct to argue that "only France can create Europe,"2 but one must add that "Europe" was a means of furthering French national policy, since the Plan allowed France to retain a degree ofcontrol over the German coal and steel industry. Meanwhile, Germany was pursuing its own goals: Adenauer was able to win increasing sovereignty for the nascent West German state by participating in moves towards European unity. From the start there was a tension, albeit inevitable and manageable, between German reassertion and France's determination to embrace her neighbor. The second method was enshrined in the direct relationships between the leaders of each country—De Gaulle-Adenauer, Giscard d'EstaingSchmidt and Mitterrand-Kohl. These relationships were not easy for, if the 1963 Franco-German Treaty (which called for regular consultation between the two governments on economic, foreign policy and security issues) represented a dramatic reconciliationbetween historic enemies, its value was undermined by the Bundestag's preamble, which subordinated 2. Jean Monnet, May 3, 1950, quoted in Le Monde, May 9, 1970. CAN FRANCE SURVIVE GERMAN REUNIFICATION? 87 German participation in the Treaty to her obligations towards NATO. This led De Gaulle to turn away from Erhards Germany. The issue which divided the two countries leads to another element in...