Author : Jessica Nicole Parks
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (662 download)
Book Synopsis France's Fourth Republic and the Definitive Decisions of 1954 by : Jessica Nicole Parks
Download or read book France's Fourth Republic and the Definitive Decisions of 1954 written by Jessica Nicole Parks and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1954, the French Premier Pierre Mendes-France made two key decision that shaped the Fourth Republic's foreign policy and laid the foundation for the Fifth Republic's Gaullist 'policies of grandeur'. Mendes-France brought and end to the debate over French participation in the European Defence Community (EDC) and helped to broker the end of France's war in Indochina. This study looks at how the Fourth Republic's focus on the war in Indochina influence France's ability to fully co-operate in the creation of the EDC: a supranational organization that the French had proposed to the western European states and members of the Atlantic Alliance in order to deal with the issue of German rearmament. The argument presented here supports revisionist claims that although France's Fourth and Fifth Republics may have functioned differently politically, there were strong dimensions of continuity in their efforts to implement foreign policies that promoted France's independence and national prestige. This argument is addressed through an extensive analysis of the historiographical literature that examines the construction and functioning of the Fourth Republic and its confrontation with the politics of decolonization, European security, and Franco-American relations. Some of the key issues in the historiographical debate are further developed by analyzing primary source documents that focus on the role Pierre Mendes-France played in protecting and promoting French interests in the 1950s. This study concludes that the decisions made by Pierre Mendes-France to end the debate over the EDC and broker an end France's war in Indochina foreshadows the role of Charles de Gaulle in promoting France's international ambitions after 1958.